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Building and Ruling 



THE 



EEPUBLIO. 



PART I. 

{Geographically. 
Politically. 
Industrially. 



PART III. 



LIVING 
QUESTIONS : 



Civil Service 

Reform. 

Polygamy. 

Prohibition. 

Protection and 
Free Trade. 

Surplus 

Revenue. 



RULING: 



PART II. 

Nationally. 
By States. 



Through 

Parties. 



PART IV. 

r For President 
and 
Yice- 
President, 



LIVES OF 

THE 

CANDIDATES 



1884. 



~W^ 



By JAMES P: BOYD, A. M. 



9 



PUBLISHED BY 

J. C. McCURDY & CO. 



/yji2S' ^^'^ 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., CHICAGO, ILLS., CINCINNATI, O., 
AND ST. LOUIS, MO. 






Copyrighted, 1 884, by 
James P. Boyd. 



PREFACE 




N this book the author seeks to present correct and 
desirable information respecting the beginning, 
growth and management of our government. Con- 
scious of the impossibility of crowding into a single 
volume half that ought to be known of our institu- 
tions, he still thinks that enough may be presented 
in one book, if properly arranged and closely 
digested, to make it a welcome and useful com- 
panion, and to thereby meet his pbject. 

The plan adopted is tb\first set the reader to 
thinking about the nature of our Republic, and 
his duty as a citizen under it. Prepared for further inquiry, if not 
impressed with higher notions of his privileges, he is asked to look at 
those little colonial pictures which dotted the Atlantic coast, and 
were the starting-points of our national existence. With a fair con- 
ception of them he will have a key to many subsequent political 
mysteries. Especially will he know why the drift set in toward a 
Great American Republic and the manner of men into whose hands 
its destiny was to fall. He will thence follow naturally the building 
of the same in its geographic or territorial sense, till it spanned the 
continent. This was acquisition. 

But it must be built politically. Here then he is introduced to a 
brief history of the events which led to the formation of the Consti- 
tution and to its adoption by the old thirteen States. This is followed 
by a division of our vast areas into Territories and their introduction 
into the Union as States. 

In building industrially a view is had of our wonderful progress in 
population, agriculture, commerce, manufacture, education, the arts and 
sciences, and of our still more wonderful wealth of native resource, 
whose development is being encouraged by freedom of action and 
urged by the enterprise of our people. 

Passing from a built Republic to its ruling or governing, the first 
consideration is that of Federal Machinery or Method — how Presi- 
dents, Congresses, Cabinets, Courts and Department Officers are 
made, what they are all for, and what they do. The next considera- 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

tion is the States — how they are governed, where they stand in the 
midst of the central fabric, and what each contributes in the way of 
population, industry and wealth to the National whole. Not the least 
important feature of ruling is that which is in great part political. 
Here is given, in a brief, impartial manner, a history of all the poli- 
tical parties, together with the measures which divided them in 
Administrations, Congresses and Campaigns. The author has 
thought this would be refreshing to elderly people, a source of valu- 
able information to the young, and especially desirable to those of 
any age who wished to prime themselves for debate or fortify their 
personal convictions by reference to public men and measures. This 
branch of the subject really gets to be a history of the Administra- 
tions and Congresses. 

To complete the plan, a view is taken of the leading vital questions 
of the day. They are up for discussion now, and will be for some 
time. Knowledge respecting them is desirable and proper. They 
are not discussed from any party or personal standpoint, but are 
treated historically. Only the facts connected with each are pre- 
sented, and these the reader may deal with as he pleases. This is 
also true of the history of the respective candidates for President and 
Vice-President, with which it has been deemed proper to close the 
volume. Their prominence at this juncture, the influence they exert 
on parties, and, through them, on the government, make acquaint- 
ance with their lives a matter of duty. 

While the plan, thus outlined, is such as seemed most helpful to the 
writer in gathering and grouping his facts, and to the reader in mak- 
ing his study an orderly progress, the effort has been constant to use 
only the most reliable and unprejudiced data at command. The 
historic and legal authorities consulted and used are the recognized 
standards. As to debates in Congress, statistics, and kindred facts, 
the author has, in general, gone to original sources, using freely 
National and State records and reports. Ofttimes for close arrange- 
ment of matter he has followed some one of our many annuals, among 
the best of which is reckoned Spofford's '* Treasury of Facts." 

Trusting that his plan will meet with popular approval and that 
his treatment of the various and interesting subjects will serve to 
convey in a pleasant and instructive way the information gathered 
and printed in the book, he ceases a labor begun and ended in a 
conviction that no higher nor better knowledge can get abroad than 
that which qualifies a man for the duties of active, wise and patriotic 
citizenship. 



CONTENTS. 



Part /. 

THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC. 

ARTICLE I —A FEW FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 

The forms of government — Nature of Democracy^ — What is a Republic ? — A 
Commonwealth — Popular government — Sovereignty — Origin of sovereignty 
— What is required of the citizen — What the State asks — How to qualify for 
citizenship — The school of the campaign — The school of historic and politi- 
cal reading — The true qualification 1 1-23 

ARTICLE II. — BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY, OR TERRI- 
TORIAL TITLES AND SHAPES. 

First owners of our soil — European titles — Are our titles good ? — First English 
patent — England wins a continent — French and Spanish claims — National 
rivalries — Raleigh's Huguenot scheme — First Colonial charier — English foot- 
hold at Jamestown — The settlers and their government — Tobacco, cotton and 
slaves — Maryland and Lord Baltimore — Plymouth Council — First Puritan, 
or Pilgrim, advent — Second Puritan advent — Massachusetts on the map — 
Birth of Rhode Island — Connecticut takes shape — A united New England — 
Freaks of Charles II. in the Colonies — Great Colonial progress — Dawn of 
North Carolina — South Carolina and Locke's famous Constitution — The 
Dutch realm — The Swede holds the Delaware — New Jersey rises amid 
Dutch ruins — The Quaker and Pennsylvania — Last of the Dutch realm and 
dawn of New York — Independent Delaware — Georgia and Oglethorpe's 
asylum — English revolution of 1688, and results to the Colonies — Outlines 
of the old thirteen States — French Empire west of the Alleghenies — Eng- 
land gets to the Mississippi — Her bad financial fix — Drift toward American 
Independence — Taxation and a Colonial Congress — The first American 
party — Tea act and another Congress — Congress and Colonial Union — 
Declaration of Independence — The Congress and government of the revolu- 
tion — Union of the Confederation — State cessions of public domain and 
further building — The Louisiana purchase — Spain cedes Florida — The 
Oregon treaty — Texas annexation — Mexican cession — Gadsden purchase — 

Alaskan purchase — Grand Territorial summary 24-96 

(5) 



6 CONTENTS. 

ARTICLE III. — BUILDING POLITICALLY, OR THE CONSTI- 
TUTION AND THE STATES. 

From Colony to State — Government of the revolution — Articles of the Confed- 
eration — Their merits and defects — Origin of the' great seal of the Union — 
History of the National Flag — Dawn of the Constitution — History of its 
framing and adoption — The new government started — Sentiment of the 
fathers — The old thirteen States — Adjusting the National Territory — Intro- 
duction of new States — Reasons why they came — Order of admission — Ter- 
ritorial history of each — Tearing down and rebuilding — Organization of the 
Territories — Completion of the political structure 97-1 28 

ARTICLE IV.— BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY, OR ADVANTAGE 
AND RESOURCE. 

Advantage of climate — Character of vegetation — Population and rank among 
nations — Immigration — Voters and natural militia — Occupations of the peo- 
ple — Agricultural growth — The cereal crops — Dairy products — Hay, cotton, 
tobacco, and the other great staples — Live-stock, number and value — Num- 
ber, acreage and value of farms — Manufactures — Precious metals — The 
useful minerals — Petroleum — Commerce and commercial growth — Imports 
and exports — Inland commerce — Railroads and canals — Telegraphs and 
telephones — Education, colleges, schools, libraries and papers — Church 
growth and relative strength of the denominations 129-190 



Part II. 

THE RULING OF THE REPUBLIC. 

ARTICLE I. — RULING NATIONALLY, OR MACHINERY OF 
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

The three great branches of government — Legislative Branch — Congress, its 
divisions, and how formed — The Senate, its nature, powers and duties- 
Election of Senators — Senate machinery — House of Representatives — Elec- 
tion of members of Congress — Their number, and manner of apportionment — 
Organization of the House— Territorial Delegates— House machinery— The 
way laws are made — Congressional library — Public Printing-offices 191-201 

Executive Department— President-making— Presidential electors— The Elec- 
toral College — Choosing of electors — President's duties and powers — His 
Cabinet— How chosen, with a history of its growth— The Vice-President, 
his powers and duties 201-207 

Department of State — Its history, nature and duties — Machinery of the 
Department — The Diplomatic Service — Ministers Plenipotentiary — Ministers 
Resident — Charge d' Affaires and Secretaries of Legation — Consular Service 
— All the Secretaries of State, with date of their appointment 207-211 

Treasury Department— Creative acts— Secretary of Treasury, his powers and 



CONTENTS. 7 

duties — Machinery of the Department — All the Divisions and Bureaus — 
Officers of each and their duties — The Customs Service — Internal Revenue 
Service — National Banks, their history, how founded and erected — Their 
circulation and uses — National debt and bonds — History of the various debts, 
and of our present funding system — The National credit — Losses of the 
Treasury Department under the respective Administrations — All the Secre- 
taries of the Treasury, with the dates of their appointment 21 1-225 

The War Department — History of the Department — Powers and duties of 
the Secretary — Machinery of the Department, its sub-departments. Bureaus 
and Divisions —Signal-office and Weather Bureau — All the Secretaries of War, 
with dates of their appointment — The United States Aimy, its organization, 
size and discipline — Military Academy, its studies, officers and students. .225-233 

The Navy Department — History of its organization — Powers and duties of 
the Secretary of Navy — The Bureaus and sub-divisions of the Department — 
The Naval Academy, its studies, officers and students — United States Navy, 
organization and discipline — Marine Corps — All the Secretaries of Navy, 
with dates of appointment 233-238 

Interior Department — History of its organization — Powers and duties of the 
Secretary of Interior — The Land Office and public land system — Pension 
Office, with history of pension system — Indian Affairs, and our dealings with 
the natives — The Patent Office — Census Office, with method of taking censuses 
— Bureau of Education — All the Secretaries of the Interior, with dates of 
their appointment 238-246 

Post-office Department — History of its organization, and of the various 
postal systems — Powers and duties of Postmaster-General — Machinery of the 
Department — Modern features of our postal system — All the Postmasters- 
General, with dates of appointment 246-249 

Department of Justice — History of the Department — Powers and duties of 
the Attorneys- General — All the Attorneys-General, with dates of appoint- 
ment 249-250 

Department of Agriculture — Creative act — Powers and duties of Commis- 
'' sioner of Agriculture 250-25 1 

Judicial Department — The third co-ordinate branch of government; its im- 
portance in the political system — Uses and powers of the Judiciary — Its 
machinery and methods of working — The Supreme Court of the United 
States — How officered and worked — All the Judges, with dates of appoint- 
ment and terms of service — The Circuit Courts — Their officers and the 
Circuit Districts — The District Courts, their organization, powers and duties 
— National Court of Claims — District Attorneys, Marshals and Juries — 
Admiralty and Maritime Courts ; . 25 1-258 

Government of the Territories — How Federal power passes into them — 
Government of the District of Columbia 258-260 

ARTICLE II.— RULING BY STATES, OR THEIR GOVERN- 
MENTS AND RESOURCES. 

Alabama — Origin of the name — Date of organization and admission — Area, 
acreage and population to square mile — Population and rate of increase — 



8 CONTENTS. 

Population by classes — By counties for three censuses — Colleges, common 
schools, and full educational condition — Occupations of the people — Agri- 
cultural condition, farms, acres and values; kind and value of farm products, 
number and value of live stock — Manufactures ; capital, hands, kind and 
value of products — Mining and mining products — Commercial facilities — 
Railroads, canals, steam and sail craft — Financial condition — Value of prop- 
erty, real and personal, debt, taxation, etc. — State Government, how officered; 
organization and sessions of Legislature; composition of Supreme Court; 
State, Congressional and Presidential elections; Representatives in Congress; 
Presidential electors — Politics for twelve years, showing majorities for Gov- 
ernor and President, all based on data furnished in the Census of 1880, and 
State and other official reports since. 
The other States and Territories follow Alabama in Alphabetical order, each 
with a like history of its government and resources 261-429 

ARTICLE III. — RULING THROUGH PARTIES, OR ADMINIS- 
TRATIONS AND CONGRESSES. 

Parties in general — Uses of Parties — First Parties — Parties of the Revolution — 
Of the Confederation — Of the Constitution — Parties of the new government 
— Federal and Anti-Federal , 430-436 

Washington's First Administrjition — The vote, the Cabinet, and the Con- 
gresses — The Constitutional Amendments — Commerce and the Tariff — 
Hamilton's policy — The First National Bank — The "Whisky Rebellion — 
Political conditions — Second Presidential election — Rise of the Republican 
party. 436-444 

Second Administration — The vote, Cabinet and Congresses — Policy of the 
new Administration — Trouble with France — Antagonism of England — The 
first foreign policy — Fierce party contests in Congress — Eleventh Amendment 
to the Constitution— Amended Tariff Act — Republican attack on the Adminis- 
tration — Conflict between the House and President over Jay's treaty — Wash- 
ington's farewell address — Election of 1796.', 444-453 

Adams' Administration — The vote. Cabinet and Congresses — Policy of the 
Administration — Armed neutrality — Envoys to France — Alien and Sedition 
laws— Naturalization law — Federal and Republican policies — Kentucky and 
Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799— Election of 1800— First political 
platform — Disputed election — Transfer of the Capitol to Washington. . . .453-462 

Jefferson's Administrations — Votes, Cabinets and Congresses — The great 
political revolution — Nature of the new power — Removals from office — Pur- 
chase of Louisiana — First articles of impeachment — Election of 1804 — The 
political situation — Burr's trial — Internal improvements — Party measures — 
Embargo act — Election of 1808 — Character of the campaign 462-474 

Madison's Administrations— Votes, Cabinets, and the Congresses— The 
Political Situation — Failure to re-charter a National Bank — Declaration of 
War— Tariff of 18 12— Election of 181 2— The Clinton platform— Attitude of 
States and Parties — The war and the treaty of Ghent — Political results — 
Hartford Convention — Death of the Federal party — A new National Bank 
— Election of 1816 »... 474-485 



\ CONTENTS. 9 

Monroe's Administrations — The votes, the Cabinets, the Coiigresses — The 
inaugural — Era of good feeling — Policy of the President — ^Jackson's invasion 
i)f Florida — Purchase of Florida — Beginning of the slavery agitation — Mis- 
souri Compromise — Election of 1820 — The Monroe Doctrine — Clay's "Amer- 
ican System " — Financial distress — Tariff of 1824 — Disputed election of 

1S24 — Disruption of the Republican party 486-497 

Joha Q. Adams' Administration — The vote. Cabinet and Congresses — The 
Nitional Republican (Whig) party — Democratic party — First Convention of 
Potectionists — Restatement of the " Monroe doctrine " — Tariff act of 1828 

— Election of 1828 497-503 

Jackton's Administrations — The Votes, Cabinets and Congresses — Jackson's 
polty — Victor and spoils — Anti-Masonic party — The pocket veto — Webster's 
andHayne's debate — Tariff of 1832-33 — Election of 183*2 — Party platforms 
— Nillification — Death of the National Bank — Surplus revenue — Panic of 
i837r- First nominating conventions — Election of 1836 — Anti-slavery 

party 503-520 

Van BWen's Administration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — The Presi- 
dent'spolicy — Independent Treasury act — Slavery agitation — Election of 

1840 a!\d Whig success — Party platforms 520-526 

Harrison^ and Tyler's Administration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — 
Harriso\'s death — Tyler deserts the Whigs — Clay's retirement — Tariff of 
1842 — T^xas and the Slavery question — Election of 1 844 — 54° 40'' or fight 

— The p\tforms and issues 526-534 

Polk's Adi^inistration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — The message — Mexi- 
can War-ipirst appearance of the American party — Wilmot Proviso — Oregon 
BoundaryA-Tariff of 1846 — Treaty of Guadaloupe - Hidalgo — Calhoun 
threatens ^cession — The Oregon bill — Election of 1848 — Platforms and 

nominees— Vree Soil Democrats 534-^542: 

Taylor's Administration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — Calhoun's new 
doctrine — Cftipromise of 1850 — ^Taylor's death — The political situation — 
Popular soveUgnty — Election of 1852— The parties and platforms — Nebraska 

bill \ 542-546 

Pierce's Admi^tration^Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — Political situation 
— Kansas andSjebraska bill— rNative American Party — Line of 36° 30'' 
Kansas troubleyElection of 1856— Rise of the Republican party— Tariff of 

1857— Panic 0^857 550-559 

Buchanan's Adrinistration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — Political situa- 
tion — Dred Scot^ecision — Squatter sovereignty and slavery — John Brown 
raid — The Lecoi\ton Constitution — Covode inquiry — Election of i860 — 
Conventions and \atrornis — Division in the Democratic party — Efforts at 

Compromise — The^cession movement 559-57' 

Lincoln's Adminis^tions — Political situation — Secession and War — War 
legislation in the Cdresses— Tariff of 1861— The attitude of parties— The 
Greenback system—volition of Slavery— Election of 1864 — Parties and 
platforms — Peace and^gassi nation — Reconstruction under Johnson — Oppo- 
sition to his party ani^mpeachment — Election of 1868 — Parties and plat- 
forms \. 571-591 



10 CONTENTS. 

Grant's Administrations — ^Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — Difficult recon- 
struction — The political situation — Legal tenders — Election of 1872 — Liberal 
Republican party — Conventions and platforms — Tariff of 1874 — Resumption 
act — Dawn of civil service reform — Civil rights bill — Election of 1876 — 
The parties and their platforms — The disputed result 591-6:0 

Hayes* Administration — Political situation — Silver coinage — Civil service 
reform — Chinese bill — Election of 1880 — Parties and platforms 6ii-(l8 

Garfield's and Arthur's Administration — Vote, Cabinet and Congresses — 
Garfield's assassination — Arthur's Cabinet — Tariff of 1883 — New postal law 
— Reduction of internal revenue — Civil service reform bill — The civil service 
commission — Message to 48th Congress 619-623 



Part III. 

LIVING QUESTIONS. 



Civil Service Reform — Its nature — History abroad — History at home--First 
attempts at reform — Second attempts at reform — The Pendleton law- Civil 
Service Commission and its work — Arguments for and against Civ Ser- 
vice 624-644 

Polygamy — History of Mormonism — Mormon condition — Mormon reed — 
Polygamy proper — Congressional Legislation — Sentimetit for and ag^nst. 645-660 

Prohibition — What it is — Historic growth — Local option — Direct Ljv — Pro- 
hibition party — For and against — Several phases 661-676 

Protection and Free Trade — Nature of the subject — Labor andcapital — 
Free Trade— Protection---Taxation— Tariff— The English polif— British 
Colonial policy — The American Thought — Free Trade era — Naire of the 
new powers — Tariff and Free Trade legislation — For and agains 677-700^ 

Surplus Revenue — History of, abroad — History of, at home — he present 
question — Arguments for and against Joi-Jiz 

Index I^Z-I^^ 



Part IV. 

CAMPAIGNS OF 1884. 

Republican National Convention—Platform — Nomination-Lives and public 
services of nominees for President and Vice-President— ^mocratic National 
Convention — Platform — Nominations — Lives and publ^ervices of nominees 
for President and Vice-President 719- 



•PART I. 

THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC. 




A FEW FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 

N a democracy, where the right of making laws resides in 
the people at large, public virtue, or goodness of in- 
tention, is more likely to be found than either of the 
other qualities of government. Popular assemblies are 
frequently foolish in their contrivance and weak in their 
execution, but generally mean to do the thing that is right and just 

and have always a degree of patriotism and public spirit 

Democracies are usually the best calculated to direct the end of 
law ; aristocracies to invent the means by which that end shall 
be obtained ; and monarchies to carry these means into execu- 
tion. — Blackstone, Vol. i., p. 49. 

This division of government into three forms is almost as old 
as the oldest writings on politics and law. It is only a general 
division, for there are other kinds of government besides these, 
but all kinds were, and are, regarded as reducible to one or the 
other of these heads. 

Though it is not Blackstone's division, yet what he says of the 
merits of each kind of government is pretty generally accepted 
as true, and is taught in law and political schools. While his 
comparative view is brief, apt and suggestive, it is nevertheless 
the view of one who drew on his then historic past for the ma- 
terial out of which to weave opinions. In that past were many 

(11) 



12 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

democratic experiments, some of them pure democracies, others 
modified democracies called republics, whose rapid rise, bright 
meteoric career and swift decline, warranted his view.* 

He did not teach that there was anything solid and enduring 
about a democracy. Had he written but yesterday he would 
have written amid greater light and perhaps not so much in 
sympathy with the notion which is so largely abroad in mon- 
archies and aristocracies that our grand American exj>eriment is 
but a " Great Republican Bubble." f 

You hear the words " democracy " and "republic" used in- 
discriminately. Perhaps you so use them yourself. If so, your 
ideas may be clear respecting them, but such use is liable to lead 
to confusion in the minds of others, unless their full meaning be 
understood. 

DEMOCRACY. — The democracy to which Blackstone refers 
is doubtless a pure democracy ; that is, the democracy in which 
the demos, or people, met in periodic assembly, talked over their 
public affairs, passed their laws and elected their rulers, very much 
as we meet at our annual, or other, elections to record our wishes, 
except that their assembly was a deliberative body like our legis- 
latures or congress, as well as a voting body. 

A better idea of it may be gotten by supposing that all the 

*The popular assembly of Athens could not consist of less than 6,000 citizens. 
The general assembly of Sparta was attended by all the freemen of Laconia. The 
republic of Venice, and the short-lived republics of Genoa and Pisa, were only repub- 
lics in name. The people ultimately lost their power to ambitious doges and coun- 
cils. The truest democracy was that of the ancient German tribes, where affairs of 
government were discussed an(i settled at their festal gatherings. That these were 
** foolish in their contrivance and weak in their execution," may be accepted as true, 
for all hands were encouraged to get gloriously drunk on the principle that they 
would then let out the true secrets of their mind. 

f Boynton in his " Four Great Powers " says : " It (the rebellion) has proved that 
a popular government is not necessarily a weak one, and that a free unwarlike 
people, unused to the restraints of thorough organization and discipline, can yet as- 
sume almost at once the highest forms of national life, can reshape, without con- 
fusion, their whole industrial energy to meet the demands of sudden war, can bring 
forth, organize and hold in hand all their resources, and with all the skill and science 
of the age, can wield a thoroughly compacted national strength, greater in propw- 
tion to population than has been exhibited by any other power on earth." 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 13 

voters of a state * should say to themselves, " We will not go 
to the trouble and expense of voting for members to represent 
us in the legislature, but we will all go to the capitol, or place of 
assemblage, and in popular meeting pass the laws ourselves." 
This would be the true and original general assembly of the 
demos^ or people, and such a government would be a pure 
democracy. It is quite plain that such a form of government 
would be fitted for only a very primitive people and a veiy small 
state. 

There is no such thing as a democracy in this sense now. It 
would be too heavy and too unwieldy a piece of machinery to 
work, or if it went at all, it would be very noisy and uncertain in 
its motion. The democracy which is meant by an every-day use 
of the word, or by the word when left unexplained, is democracy 
in its secondary or modified sense ; that is, democracy in a repre- 
sentative form. 

We do not all go to the • general assembly to make laws, but 
we go to the polls and vote for some one to go in our stead, to 
represent us there, as the saying is. We still preserve the name 
•* general assembly " — though largely substituted by the word 
" legislature " — to designate the place of meeting, not of the 
people at large, or of such of them as are called voters, but of 
the people through and by means of their chosen representatives. 
We are not in the general assembly directly, but we are there 
indirectly. We do not speak there with our own mouths but 
through our chosen mouth-pieces. We do not vote directly for 
our laws, but our representatives, who are supposed to know our 
wishes and who are responsible to us, vote for us. This is a 

* Or rather all the people of a state, for the Declaration of Independence says 
" governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed ; " and 
the preamble to the Constitution reads, " We the people do ordain and establish, 
etc. ; " upon v^^hich Judge Sharswood remarks, " that in the freest nations — even in 
the republics which compose the United States — the consent of the entire people 
has never been expressly obtained. The people comprehend all the men, women 
and children of every class and age. A certain number of men have assumed to 
act in the name of all the community. The qualification of electors or voters was in 
general settled by the colonial charters, as well as the principle that the acts of a 
majority of such electors were binding on the whole." 



14 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

much cheaper and handier kind of democracy than that first 
spoken of. It is the kind which must be understood when the 
term " democracy " is used without explanation, or in connection 
with our form of government. This government then is not a 
pure democracy, but a modified, or representative democracy; 
nevertheless it is a democracy. 

REPUBLIC. — And as a democracy, it is equally a republic, 
for " republic " is very well defined as a form of government in 
which the sovereign, or law-making, power is exercised by 
means of representatives chosen by the people. The two terms, 
" democracy " and " republic," here come together in their mean- 
ing, and one may be used for the other without fear of con- 
fusion. 

COMMONWEALTH.— YoM find in your reading other terms 
used to convey the same idea as " democracy " or " republic." 
The word " commonwealth " is one of them. And a very good 
word it is, too. Commonwealth is the common weal, health or 
happiness. It was not the democracy or republic of Cromwell,* 
but the commonwealth of Cromwell, though strictly it was all 
three, using democracy in its secondary sense as above explained. 
And this word " commonwealth " is much used by the respec- 
tive States of our Union, as the " Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania," " Commonwealth of Virginia," etc. Indeed, so popular 
and well fixed has this usage of the word become that it may be 
said to distinguish the smaller or fractional republic, otherwise 
called a State, from the Federal Republic, otherwise called the 
United States. 

POPULAR GOVERNMENT.— ThQ phrase "popular gov- 
ernment," or " popular form of government," is common among 
speakers and writers when they refer to a democracy or republic. 
It is a pleasing phrase and hath much meaning. Every govern- 
ment which is endured, liked and sustained is in one sense 
" popular." In another sense every government which is par- 

* The word *' commonwealth " has got a meaning in English history as the form 
of government established on the death of Charles I., in 1649, and which existed 
under Cromwell and his son Richard, ending with the abdication of the latter in 
1659. 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. ]5 

tially representative, as a limited monarchy, is popular. But see 
the different shades of meaning embraced in the word " popular." 
In the first sense a despotism may be a popular form of govern- 
ment, in that the people may like it, but in the sense that they 
participate in it, help to carry it on, it is most decidedly 
unpopular. 

In the expression " popular government " the word " popu- 
lar " has, therefore, its true and original meaning, " of or belong- 
ing to the people«»" Perhaps the expression was never so happily 
paraphrased as when Mr. Lincoln, referring to our *' popular 
form of government " in his oration at Gettysburg, called it " a 
government of the people, by the people, and for the people." 

Popular is what is of and belongs to the popuhis^ the people. 
The popular voice is the people's voice. The popular vote is 
the people's vote. Popular elections are the people's elections. 
Popular institutions are the people's institutions. A popular 
government is the people's government. And so, by contrast 
with those forms of government in which the people have no 
voice at all, and even in contrast with those forms in which they 
have a partial voice, the phrase " popular government," or " pop- 
ular form of government," gets a meaning which always points 
out clearly a democracy, a republic, or a commonwealth. Our 
government is a popular form of government, or a popular 
government. 

We happily know more about this kind of a government than 
Mr. Blackstone did. Our national experiment, so wisely started 
by our fathers, so adequate to every strain, has proved that a 
popular form of government, one in which the sovereignty is 
vested in the people, one in which the people are the rulers, is 
not necessarily weak or perishable, nor illy fitted to secure to the 
governed the ends for which it was established. Every one who 
has chosen to make himself acquainted with its history, and who 
has not ? has seen such a government grow in size, strength and 
importance, in spite of the fierce obstacles of wars without and 
wars within. He has seen it ac'quire, populate, cement and give 
law and order to vast regions it did not own at the start. He 
has seen it rise from small and not very harmonious beginnings 



16 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

till it has assumed the highest form of national life and con« 
quered one of the first seats in the great political system which 
embraces all the civilized nations of the earth. 

SOVEREIGNTY.— Amid this splendid growth, these evi- 
dences of inherent strength, these promises of durability, who 
does not feel new pride in our first and greatest axiom, " The 
sovereignty is in us, the people." Would that this pride were 
strong enough to impress every citizen with the need of special 
qualification for his high office, for his is an office — that of 
sovereign — and one with broader meaning and deeper function 
than that of the governor or president he helps to create. 

In no country of the world does' the word " sovereignty," as 
attached to the individual, have so much significance as in the 
United States. It is not merely a claim or a boast, but it is an 
inherent power which he may exercise on all proper occasions 
and in accordance with his own free will, and which he ought to 
exercise if he expects to be content with the laws and those who 
execute them. Knowledge of this supreme endowment ought 
to inspire every citizen with higher notions of manhood, ought to 
deepen his interest in the affairs of society and the State, ought 
to make him feel that there is no education so important as that 
which will teach him how best to turn the power he wields to 
the account of himself and those about him. True, he is but 
one sovereign among many, and he may feel that his voice is 
weak, his identity lost ; but let an attempt be made to rob him 
of his endowment, and he will feel as if the loss were a mighty 
one indeed, one which could not well be borne. He would 
fight against its loss, as if it were the dearest thing on earth to 
him. 

The true majesty and moving effect of individual sovereignty 
is visible when it is united with that of other individuals all 
along any line of political action. One soldier does not make 
an army, nor one man a nation, but many soldiers and many 
men. So sovereignty gets to be an imposing and effective force, 
gets to be sovereignty indeed, when it is a thing resident in, or 
bubbling forth from, a set of men, a society, a people, a nation. 
In the individual it was a still small voice, in the nation it is 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 17 

Jove's chariot thundering in the heavens and shaking the earth.* 
Then, indeed, it means law, presidents and governors, constitu- 
tions, states, empires, and in an hour of great public grievance, 
or of incendiary partisan rage, it may mean the defiance of law, 
the overthrow of officials, the smashing of constitutions, the 
upheaval of states, the crashing of empires. It is a power for 
evil as well as good, a source of danger as well as safety. 

WHENCE SO VEREIGNTY SPRANG.— In the after part of 
this volume there will be many opportunities of learning how the 
notions of popular liberty and the doctrines of popular sovereignty 
which are now a part of our national life were planted in our soil 
and cultivated among our colonial fathers. But the lesson of 
their importance to us cannot be fully learned, nor can their bear- 
ing upon the rest of the world be completely realized till we con- 
sider how many and what desperate battles they had to fight in 
the old world before they commanded any degree of respect. It 
was not the part of any feudal government to recognize sover- 
eignty as in the people. Yet there never was a time when the 
people did not feel that all sovereignty was in them. Conse- 
quently all political history is marked here and there by volcanic 
eruptions of popular will, by upheavals of the masses in, too often, 
vain attempts to assert the power to rule themselves, which they 
felt was God-given and inherent. The democracies that tossed 
and writhed and tormented and spent themselves in very excess 
of agony, were simply the boiling up through hard feudal surfaces 
of that spirit which we now proudly claim and exercise as free- 
men. The republics which gave a mouth to every Grecian, bred 
in every Roman a sense of dignity, imparted a feeling of man- 
hood to every Venetian, taught England that the " divinity 
which hedges a king " was no more divine than that which 

* Some writers prefer not to speak of sovereignty as in the individual. They 
only recognize sovereignty as something residing in and coming out of an aggregate 
of individuals, a nation. Thus Brownson : " Sovereignty, under God, inheres in 
the organic people, or the people as a republic." It is only a question of when to 
begin to call it sovereignty. As a source of pride to the individual citizen he might 
as well be made to feel that his exercise of the elective franchise is an evidence of 
the sovereignty that is within him, as not. The water of each of an hundred springs 
that make up the river is in the river, whatever you may say. 
2 



18 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

hedges a mere citizen, were all so many protests on the part of 
the people against the doctrine of potentates that power does not 
rise from the masses, but comes down to them through masters. 
Rulers were always smarter than the uneducated, noisy, inco- 
herent, careless masjes. Hence democracies and republics were 
short lived. A shrewd or unscrupulous ruler was more than a 
match for brawling assembly, or a jealous and discordant, set of 
electors. The Doges of Venice literally ran away with the 
power entrusted to them by the people, and royal diplomacy 
manoeuvred England out of Cromwellian republicanism in ten 
years time. In all these battles for sovereignty the masses were 
at a decided disadvantage. They were, in general, not educated. 
If religious, their religion did not admit the freedom of con- 
science. If freemen, the modern doctrine of personal and civil 
liberty was not understood by them. If voters, the value of 
sovereignty was not appreciated. But with the reformation came 
a flood of daylight upon the lowly. Conscience got loose and 
shook itself rejoicingly, being free from fetters. Reading and 
thinking got down to the bases of society, and new notions of 
personal and civil liberty began to prevail. Subjects began to 
feel that they were men with rights which even sovereigns must 
respect, and most of all that they were a source of power which 
even sovereigns could be made to fear. Great minds got to 
writing about the sources of power, the responsibilities of 
citizenship, the relation of rulers to the ruled, the nature of 
liberty, the value of sovereignty, the duty of the freeman to as- 
sert his rights. Parties or sects — you can as yet scarcely distin- 
guish between the two — sprang up, some to fight for their 
religion through their politics, and some to fight for their politics 
through their religion. In England the Puritan got to be a 
stubborn force, so did the Independent, and the Presbyterian, 
and the Quaker, all discordant, yet all united, in so far as the 
drift of their thought and influence was toward intellectual 
moral and political freedom, and the ultimate right of man to 
choose his own rulers and make his own laws. These were 
brave souls and they clung to their convictions and indoctrinated 
their fellows amid social ostracism and state persecution. Ham- 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 19 

pered on all sides by forms too hard to break through, over- 
shadowed by power too well entrenched to be easily dislodged, 
feeling that their doctrines were pervading, permanent and vital 
enough to bear transplanting, and knowing that an open conti- 
nent lay beyond the ocean, they were ripe for the experiment of 
American colonization. 

WE SHOULD PREPARE OURSELVES.— The propriety 
of, nay the necessity for, educating statesmen * is not doubted. 
Yet here we are, old and young, all of us, statesmen by right, 
and each endowed with a dignity and authority to which your 
statesman in fact is willing to take off his hat. Nothing is so 
pleasing and assuring as to see an office-holder well qualified 
for his office. Yet we are all office-holders, in that personal 
sovereignty is within each man's keeping. We go about our 
work or pleasure with what may be called the highest office, at 
least the highest responsibility, in the land, hanging to our per- 
sons, and inseparable from us. 

The citizen makes a terrible mistake, one which may any day 
bring disaster to his country and himself, who supposes that he 
can properly fill his high office, perform his full duty as sov- 
ereign, without any previous thought or qualification. He cannot 
be a safe repository of power who does not know what power is, 
and when and how to exercise it. One cannot be a good presi- 
dent maker who has no idea of what a president is for, and what 
a good one is like. The man who is ignorant of legislation or 
the quality of a safe legislator is not fit to choose a representa- 
tive in congress or the general assembly. You could scarcely 
expect a person without judgment to select a good judge for 
you. While the principle that every man is a sovereign, or that 
sovereignty resides in the people, is a glorious and inspiring one, 
it would be most dangerous to our own peace and to the per- 

* What is specially needed in statesmen is public spirit, intelligence, foresight, 
broad views, manly feelings, wisdom, energy, resolution ; and when statesmen with 
these qualities are placed at the head of affairs, the state, if not already lost, can, 
however far gone it may be, be recovered, restored, reinvigorated, advanced, and 
private vice and corruption disappear in the splendor of public virtue. — Brownson's 
American Republic, 



20 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

petuity of the nation, if we were all as ignorant and brutish as 
South Sea Islanders, or as indifferent as the free-footed Bedouins 
of the desert. It is only a safe and tolerable principle here and 
now because, as a rule, some kind of qualification exists, or be- 
cause, as a theory, sufficient qualification is presumed ; or, to 
state it in other words, because the result of the ballot is suffi- 
ciently on the side of purity and intelligence to answer as a set- 
off against an impure and ignorant ballot. 

A CONTRACT WITH THE STATE.— Th^ ballot is the 
legal means of giving expression to the will, or sovereignty, that 
is within us. Ought there ever to be a doubt about its intelli- 
gence and safety ? Ought government, through and by means 
of the ballot, to be a sort of political hit or miss game, a thing 
to make one say, " Oh well, it is all wrong in this or that matter, 
but we will trust to another turn of the wheel to correct it?" 
We ought not to forget that despotism, aristocracy, monarchy, 
and every form of government which does not rank as popular, 
finds a strong vindication in its distrust of the masses, and in its 
doctrine that the sovereignty which comes up out of the people 
is uncertain, gross, and unsafe. The answer to the claim that 
the masses ought to govern themselves always was, " Let them 
prove that they are equal to the task." In the face of all the 
obstacles presented — their own ignorance as well as the superior 
intelligence and adroitness of their masters — they generally failed 
to prove it, and the laugh was on the side of the " powers that 
be." It was only when time had worked great changes in the 
condition of the common people, and when they began to give 
some proofs of their ability to master political situations, that the 
power which emanated from them, the state or government, got 
to be of any account. And now, under our form of government, 
does there not exist a secret understanding, an implied contract, 
a tacit pledge, between the state and the citizen, to the effect that 
one shall do all he can to qualify himself for his responsibilities, 
in turn for the protection and comfort the other affords ? If 
such contract does not exist, the citizen is none the less respon- 
sible, and he must still face the question, " If ballots are even 
yet barely safe because those which are qualified outnumber 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 21 

those which are not qualified, what might we not expect in the 
shape of stronger government and better institutions, if all were 
qualified ? " The obligation of every sovereign citizen to qualify 
himself for the intelligent exercise of the power that is within 
him is deep, impressive, awful. Does he realize it ? * 

HOW QUAL/FYf— Whatever will make the citizen think 
more seriously of his political obligations, whatever will enable 
him to give truthful, safe, and' telling expression to the sover- 
eignty that is within him, is a schooling of no mean order. 
Streams cannot rise higher than their source, creatures cannot 
be superior to their creators, institutions cannot be better than 
their supporters. Governments, laws, officials are, in general, a 
fair reflex of the ballots which make them. Before they can be 
raised to high and safe standards, we must rise to high and safe 
standards of citizenship. We must never admit that because a 
majority of us are qualified to exercise sovereignty, therefore 
things are safe. Things never can be absolutely safe till all are 
qualified. Our common schooling is a great help to us. But it 
is not of that special kind which is calculated to acquaint us 
with political situations, sharpen our wits as rulers, stimulate our 
pride of citizenship. Few of us ever think about our duty to the 
government till we are reminded of it by the alarum of a political 
campaign. Then as a short cut toward qualifying ourselves, we 
rush pellmell to school to the teachers who appear on the stump 
and in a declamatory, off-hand way, attempt to prove to us all 
kinds of impossibilities and demonstrate all undemonstrable 
things. These very eloquent teachers are seldom clear, dispas- 
sionate, or impartial. They may be mere creatures of prejudice 
or ambition. As a rule they rely more on the arts which cap- 
tivate than on the logic which persuades, more on the tricks 
which deceive than on the facts which convince. Their appeals 

* Our republic has been reared for immortality, if -the work of man may aspire to 
such title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, corruption, or neg- 
ligence of its only keepers, the people. Republics are created by the virtue, public 
spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from 
the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, 
because they flatter the people in order to betray them. — Story on the Constitution, 



22 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

are to the passions and not to the solid judgments of men. The 
most they want is votes, not as winged principles, but as some- 
thing to be counted in one, two, three order for their favorite 
candidate. There is but one class of scholar who is truly at 
home in this ringing, jostling, exciting school. He is the one 
who will not qualify himself in any other way, who is fond of the 
hurly-burly, delights in brass bands and ear-splitting hurrahs, 
loves the delirium of passion, and supports the ticket, no matter 
who is on it nor what principles it embodies. Conviction goes 
to the dogs with such an one, sovereignty is a Chinese gong, 
the franchise a batch of fire-works, and election day a glorifica- 
tion. 

You will say, " but better this school than none." Assuredly. 
We do not design to diminish its importance further than that is 
effected by showing that it is not the best school, and should not 
be the only one, in which to learn our duties as citizens, or to 
get substantial notions of our high privileges. It is very 
pleasant to hear speeches, delightful to be carried away by ora- 
torical flights and figures, gratifying to see an enemy's scalp 
raised by the keen knife of sarcasm, inspiring to be appealed to 
in various pathetic ways, but it is all very much like going to a 
theatre to dwell for a little time in the midst of sentiments and 
passions. It is an intoxicating, short-lived schooling, which may 
tide one over an emergency, but leaves the mind to as sad a re- 
action as a drink of spirits does the body. 

The best qualification of the citizen is that which is always 
going on. He may quicken it by the usual agencies of the cam- 
paign, brush up, as it were, at each call to exercise his sover- 
eignty, but the solid, solemn work of preparation ought to begin 
with the child and never end till death ends it. The course of 
study cannot be mapped. Tastes vary, and time is not at the 
command of all alike. But it is safe to say that all may learn, 
and should, what will make them prouder of the distinction of 
^ sovereign citizen, what will enable them to handle, without dan- 
ger to themselves or others, the sharp weapon of the ballot, 
what will give them bigger and broader views of their country 
and institutions, what will enlarge their manhood and make them 



FOUNDATION THOUGHTS. 23 

feel their importance as factors in further building and perpetu- 
ating this vast temple of government, which is even now over- 
shadowing all others and influencing all others for their good. 
For the greater encouragement of the young, and for overcom- 
ing the indifference of those of riper years, let this fact not es- 
cape attention. The people are closer to their rulers and their 
government now than ever before in its history. Just as they 
prepare themselves for the duty of personal rulers, they rise in im- 
portance with their political rulers. Just as they are able to 
think accurately for themselves, formulate their thoughts suc- 
cinctly, and defend them stoutly, in that proportion the political 
ruler hearkens unto them and takes his cue from them. It is for 
this reason that reform is twice as speedy now as it was twenty 
years ago. The better informed, the stronger, the more resolute 
the constituency, the surer it is of a prompt and certain echo 
from its representative. And this is as it should be, for the 
whole theory of sovereignty with us is, that power passes up- 
ward from the people, never downward. So, ability to instruct 
and judge should pass in the same direction. While the respon- 
sibility of the people is thus greater, the duty of the legislator is 
simpler and easier. 




BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY, 

OR 

TITLES AND TERRITORIAL SHAPES. 

f/i'HE FIRST OWNERS.— When America was discov- 
11 ered the title to the soil was in the Indian. He was 
sovereign proprietor. He acknowledged no obedience, 
allegiance, nor subordination to any foreign nation. He 
has never to this day yielded a jot or tittle of his original 
right of dominion, except when he sold out voluntarily, or was 
forced by arms into a treaty. His claim was precisely like that 
of all civilized nations, a claim based on exclusive possession 
and use for his purposes, for hunting, for trading, for subsistence. 
If he had no fields, no fixed towns, few of the things which 
fasten other folks to one spot, it was nobody's business. That 
did not invalidate his claim in the least. 

THE EUROPEAN TITLE.— Th^ discovery of America in 
1492 brought across the ocean the doctrine that general title to 
all the new lands and the right to govern them rested on the fact of 
discovery. Perhaps it would be better to say, the discovery of 
America was the date of the invention of this doctrine. The 
legal doctrine of discovery was, that title to the soil was in the 
discoverer provided the territory discovered were unoccupied, 
uninhabited. Why was this doctrine twisted out of all legal 
shape, or so greatly enlarged? Because the Indian was a 
heathen. The Christian thought of the time did not draw a line 
between political and spiritual sovereignty. The right to con- 
vert a heathen carried everything with it — right to govern him, 
right to own his soil. In a word, he was, if unconverted, an 
encumbrance, and it became a Christian duty and glory to con- 
(24) 




PIONEER DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 25 

quer him and possess his domains.* This is what made the 
broad claim of title by discovery defensible, or rather, it is what 
reconciled it to the European mind, for no lawyer would ever 
agree, without fee in advance, to establish the righteousness of a 
title by discovery to an unknown inhabited land, be the inhabitants 
heathen or not. Imagine the King of the Cannibal Isles sailing 
out and striking the, to him, unknown coast of America at San 
Francisco, and, landing and planting his banners in the soil, tak- 
ing possession and declaring the whole country his by right of 
first discovery. How many of us would quake at the thought 
that we, heathen to the great king, would have to give up our 
titles and pass under a new dynasty ?t How many of us would 
acquiesce in his bold claim, or do other than the Indian has 
done — deny his right to soil and dominion, and fight to the death 
against it? 

ARK OUR TITLES GOOD .^— In law, time is a great cura- 
tive. We can at least plead that we ought not to be disturbed, 
because lapse of time has come in to cure the defects of our 
title by discovery. However indefensible in law or morals the 
European title to our soil was, the then civilized nations stood 
committed to it, and we are entitled to the excuse which this 
general commitment furnishes. It was a policy erroneous and 
despotic. But even such policy may lead to results which, after 
a long time, ought not to be questioned or disturbed. Besides, 

* It might be curious to inquire how far we are away from this doctrine now. Is 
not the red man still in the road? Has not our national policy toward him always 
savored too much of the policy of the pioneer, that because he is in the way and 
his land is good, therefore it is right to drive him away and take it ? 

•}• " The truth is, the European nations paid not the slightest regard to the rights 
of the native tribes. They treated them as mere barbarians and heathens, whom if 
they were not at liberty to exterminate, they were entitled to deem as mere tempor- 
ary occupants of the soil. They might convert them to Christianity, and, if they re- 
fused conversion, they might drive them from the soil as unworthy to inhabit it. 
They affected to be governed by the desire to promote the cause of Christianity, and 
were aided in this ostensible object by the whole influence of the papal power. 
But their real object was to extend their own power, and increase their own wealth 
by acquiring the treasures as well as the territory of the New World, Avarice and am- 
bition were at the bottom of all their original enterprises." — Story on the Constitu- 
tion. 



26 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the Indians were much dealt with outside of this policy. In 
some instances it was modified by the sovereigns themselves in 
granting charters. In others by the proprietaries in acquiring 
their lands. In others still by the actual settlers. These, in 
a more becoming spirit of humanity and with a view to having 
their titles peaceable and perfect at the start, actually bought the 
soil of the Indian, and left him free to enjoy his tribal form of 
government. It need not be assumed that any very clearly or 
elegantly worded contracts were made, nor that deeds contain- 
ing exact descriptions of the lands were given, nor even that 
anything like fair prices were paid, according to our notions of 
value, yet the fact that the Indian, accustomed to roam a con- 
tinent, with no attachment to locality, and therefore with no idea 
of an acre or its equivalent in cash, assented to the terms, gives 
the transaction validity in law. 

FIRST ENGLISH PATENT.— Wh3.t a grand rush there 
was for discovery and possession as soon as land was known to 
exist amid the waters which supposably stretched from West- 
ern Europe to Eastern Asia ! In this rush, and so far as we are 
concerned, England got the lead. The Cabots, father and sons, 
Bristol merchants in long commerce with the fishermen of Iceland 
who may have told of Greenland, first discovered the continent 
of America."^ With a boldness second only to that of Colum- 
bus, and a confidence which almost compels us to think they 
were familiar with Icelandic traditions, they went into the midst 
of the unknown waters, bearing a patent from the politic Henry 
VII., one clause of which read : " Empowering them to search 
for islands, countries, provinces, or regions, hitherto unseen by 
Christian people ; to affix the banners of England on any city, 
island or continent they might find, and, as vassals f of the Eng- 
lish crown, possess and occupy the territories that might be 
discovered." 

* We readily accept the Icelandic history — it is certainly more than tradition — that 
their people were in communication with the fishing-grounds of Newfoundland and 
the eastern coast of America centuries before Columbus sailed. But, so far as 
national or political results followed, we must speak of Cabot's discovery as the first. 

f Observe the feudal word vassal. " The first maxim of feudal tenure (title) was 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 27 

ENGLAND GETS A CONTINENT.— This clause is in- 
teresting as part of the most ancient American state paper in 
England, and, further, it gave to England an entire continent. 
Its date is March 5, 1496. The Cabots struck the continent 
in N. lat. 56°, Labrador, in June, 1497, fourteen months before 
Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the mainland 
off the mouth of the Orinoco. You ask why England didn't 
hold the continent if she claimed by right of discovery. The 
answer is she did not know she had one to hold. Again, when 
she learned that it was really a continent, and was anxious for a 
title as against some other discoverer or occupant, she always 
made bold to set up the one founded on this discovery. It 
always served her when she was the stronger party and nothing 
was wanting but a pretext to title. And just here it is well to 
note that this whole matter of title by discovery underwent many 
changes. Several nations set up claims to the continent because 
each thought it had discovered it. Ignorant of its geography 
and of the discoveries of others, each nation had to modify its 
claims under certain circumstances. 

FRENCH CLAIMS.— ^ot knowing what they had struck, 
the planting of the English banners on Labrador did not deter 
other nations from joining in the hunt for possession. Nor did 
a second voyage (1498), by Sebastian Cabot, which resulted in a 
profile of the coast from Newfoundland to Albemarle Sound. 
The French came skirting up the coast * from North Carolina, 
stopping at New York, at Newport, thence on to Nova Scotia, 
striking the grand fishing-grounds, a field they never quit till 
driven off two hundred and forty years afterwards (1763) by the 
English.f Though ten to twenty years later than the Cabots J 

that all lands were originally granted by the sovereign and therefore held of the 
crown. The grantee, who had only a use, according to the terms of the grant, was 
called the feudatory or vassal (tenant)." — Blackstone, vol. ii., p. 53. 

* The voyage of John Verrazzani, an Italian in the employ of Francis I., of 
France, in the " Dolphin" (1524),. reads like a novel. 

f We use the modern names of these places for convenience. The French names, 
as St. John, St. Lawrence, Cape Breton, are all early. 

\ Within seven years of the discovery of the continent, the fisheries of New- 
foundland were known to the hardy mariners of Brittany and Normandy.— - 
Bancroft. 



28 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in asserting title, the French took a decided lead in discovery 
and settlement in their St. Lawrence region, New France. 
Champlain was anxious to found a state, and he backed up De 
Monts, who had gotten a patent for the sovereignty of Acadia, 
extending from Philadelphia to beyond Montreal (1603). It was 
to be a Huguenot country, but the Jesuits came also. Though 
they wrangled much, Champlain managed to hold the line of the 
St. Lawrence for France, and the settlements there became the 
source of that wonderful Jesuit movement beyond Niagara, out 
the chain of the great lakes and down the Mississippi to the 
gulf* 

SPANISH CLAIMS.— For years after 1492, Spain had been 
working her way through the Caribbean Islands, and in 1 5 1 2 
struck Florida. Ponce de Leon first saw this land on Easter 
Sunday [Pascua Floridci). This meant a continent for Spain, as 
much as the discovery of Labrador by the Cabots meant one 
for England, though De Leon supposed it only an island. He 
was to have its government on the condition that he colonized 
it. Spain did not trust to mere discovery so much as to actual 
settlement. The natives fought the Spanish off, and wounded 
De Leon unto death. Thirty years after along came De Soto, 
an old friend of Pizarro, who desired to rival him in wealth and 
Cortes in glory. He began his wonderful freebooting march to 
the Mississippi, beneath whose waters he found a grave.f What 
was Florida ? In Spanish imagination it was everything from" 
the Gulf of Mexico to Newfoundland, and as far west as the 
" River of Palms " (Mississippi) or as land extended. Canada 
was in the Spaniard's Florida ; so was Louisiana ; and so every 
intermediate mountain chain and waving prairie. The Missis- 
sippi rose in Florida and emptied in Florida. Not a nation dis- 
puted her claims so far as they embraced the Gulf coast. 

* Cartier's voyages (1527 to 1542) planted the French standard in all that in- 
definite country of Norimbega. He built a fort at Quebec in 1541. 

•|- Narvaez previously made a similar march to the " River of Palms " and on to 
the Pacific. The story of his exploits is too wild for belief. The Spanish under 
Gomez had also skirted the coast to New England, calling the country The Land 
of Gomez. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 29 

THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS.— Here then were three rivals, 
all claiming the same lands as discoverers, England claimed a 
continent, or would have done so had she known it was a conti- 
nent. France in mapping her New France claimed from Dela- 
ware bay northward. Spain claimed for her Florida, or New 
Spain, everything from the Gulf of Mexico to Newfoundland. 
What a chance for future troubles ! But as yet these claims 
were so misty and vague as not to be worth fighting about. In- 
deed they did not serve even as a bar to other claims on the 
ground of discovery by these same nations or by others, espe- 
cially when a permanent settlement followed. Thus when Coligny 
wanted (1562) to establish a Huguenot colony and found a 
Protestant French empire in America* he selected Florida as the 
site, and calling it Carolina, after Charles IX. of France, gave it 
a limit extending from St. Augustine to Port Royal entrance. 
His first colony failed (1563). In 1565 he tried another which 
brought a storm about French ears. Maddened at this audacious 
attempt to set up a Protestant empire within her Catholic 
domains, Spain drove the French colonists out and proclaiming 
Philip II. monarch of all North America hastened to found St. 
Augustine (1565), the oldest town in the United States by forty 
years. The fighting period had now arrived, and home jealousies 
and wars had as much to do with colonial disturbances as any- 
thing else. England had broken away from Catholicism : why 
shouldn't she be jealous of Spanish ascendency in the New World ? 
The century, or thereabouts, since the discovery of America, had 
fired European rulers with a mania for the enlargement of their 
empires by discoveiy. The idea grew more and more popular 
that titles by discovery, in order to be substantial, should be 
backed by actual settlement. It was found that no- mean trade 
could be driven with the natives in the shape of furs, etc., and 
that our coasts furnished favorable fishing-grounds. The thrill- 
ing stories of Spanish adventure, conquest and enrichment in 
Peru and Mexico had gotten abroad and were filling men of 
every nationality with dreams of El Dorados in all parts of the 

* A disastrous attempt, under the special co-operation of Calvin himself, had 
been made to found a similar empire at Rio Janeiro in Brazil. — Southey's Brazil. 



30 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

New World. Religious enthusiasm built imaginary abiding- 
places in the wilderness for the faithful, away from persecution, 
competition and all state interference. Humanitarians, philan- 
thropists, political theorists, saw golden opportunity in the 
American wilds for great reformed and reforming empires. 
Bankrupt nobility pictured to itself a renewal of estates and 
titles amid our splendid virgin areas on a far larger and grander 
scale than their fathers had ever heard of 

RALEIGH'S SCHEME.— ^■A€iz\\ had been a pupil of 
Coligny. He dreamed of an empire for England on the very 
spot whence the Protestants of France had been expelled. He 
therefore took up Coligny's failure. Armed with a patent from 
Queen Elizabeth (1584) he tried his experiment a little farther 
north and under more favorable auspices. But failure awaited 
him also. His ^abandoned " City of Raleigh " on the barren 
island of Roanoke (1587) was two centuries later (1792), and by 
solemn act of the legislature of North Cq^olina, revived in its 
capital " The City of Raleigh." As Coligny's scheme gave to 
the Carolinas (the New France of the South) a name, so Raleigh's 
gave to the indefinite territory of his patent the name of Virginia, 
after the virgin queen.* 

FIRST COLONIAL CHARTER.— Turnmg the century 
(1600) England was better prepared than any other country for 
adventure, or say permanent settlement, in North America. The 

* This attempt of Raleigh to found a Huguenot colony under English auspices 
as a set-off to Spanish Catholic influence on the South did more to spread a correct 
idea of the soil, climate, inhabitants and resources of the new land than any other 
thus far. Its historian, Harlot, was a keen observer. He observed the culture of 
tobacco and accustomed himself to its use, after the Indian fashion. He .studied 
the maize crop and noted its productiveness. He also fried the potato with the 
natives and found it very good food. The natives were treated as men, and the 
chief, Manteo, was given a peerage, the first in Anglo-American annals. It ought 
not to escape attention that Raleigh took possession of this Virginia country, so signal 
a part of Spanish Florida, and at so late a date, by reason of discovery. He of 
course knew of Coligny's claim to the same for France. But France and England 
could afford to pull together in the scheme of a Huguenot (Protestant) colony or 
empire right down upon and overshadowing Catholic Florida. It was a long-headed, 
deeply concocted scheme on the part of Raleigh and Elizabeth, and one that Eng- 
land, or rather Protestantism, could afford to take much stock in. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 31 

timid policy of King James I. (1603-1625) in throwing out of 
employment the gallant seamen who had served under Elizabeth 
left them no option but to engage in the quarrels of strangers or 
seek employment, wealth and fame in the new world. The 
vague uncertain title of the first discoverer could now be backed 
up by actual settlement. That possession which was then as 
much as even ten points of law could be brought into play. A 
true colonial scheme could be developed and practised which 
would not only reduce the wilderness to an inchoate govern- 
ment, but anchor it safely at the foot of the throne. 

Now see the hold this spirit of colonization had gotten in 
England. The influential assigns of Raleigh's patent, the 
wealthy Gorges, governor of Plymouth (Eng.), the experienced 
Gosnold who first set English foot on Cape Cod (1602), the 
enthusiastic Captain Smith, the persevering Hakluyt, historian 
of all the early voyages, and towering above all, the Lord Chief 
Justice himself. Sir John Popham — these formed a coterie whose 
plea " to deduce a colony into Virginia " James I. could not 
resist. He granted them the first colonial charter under which 
the English were planted in America, April 10, 1606. Do not 
forget the date : it is an important one, the beginning of many 
real things in connection with our government. Do not forget 
the coterie. They were tenacious men, representative of Eng- 
land's wealth and influence at home and her adventure abroad, 
and they or their assigns -come up continually from this time on 
to disturb future titles and worry future colonists. Do not fail 
either to look a little into the charter itself, for its bearings on 
our history and institutions are direct, and it shows in what 
shape English monarchy first fastened itself on our soil. 

The charter gave twelve degrees, reaching from Cape Fear, 
N. C, to Halifax, Nova Scotia (34° to 45° N. lat.), to two rival 
companies, one of London, the other of towns in the west of 
England.* The London Company (Southern Colony), which 

*The first goes, popularly, by the name of the London Company. As its portion 
of the above grant was the southern part of Virginia and its settlement on the James 
river, it is known to our history as the Southern Colony. The second company, 
whose residents were njostly at Plymouth, is called, popularly, the Western Company, 



32 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

alone succeeded, had right to occupy from 34° to 38° ; that is, 
from Cape Fear to the southern Hmit of Maryland. The Western 
or Plymouth Company (Northern Colony) had right to occupy 
from 41° to 45° ; that is, from say New York to HaHfax. From 
38° to 41° was open to both, with right to the soil fifty miles 
north or south of any actual settlement they might make therein.* 
The government was a Council in England appointed by the 
king. A Local Council had charge of local affairs in the re- 
spective colonies. The king reserved the right of supreme leg- 
islative authority and supervision. The emigrant and his 
children should continue to be Englishmen. The original 
grantees or patentees were to hold the lands and other rights by 
the tenure of free and common socage, and not in capite.'\ The 
patentees could of course regrant their lands to actual col- 
onists according to the tenures they held. The hard, impractic- 
able features of the charter were that the emigrant had no elec- 
tive franchise, no right of self-government. The power was first 

or the Plymouth Company, and as their part of the grant was in the north of Vir- 
ginia, i, e., from New York to Halifax, it is known in our history as the Northern 
Colony, but chiefly by its failures. 

* " The name of ' Virginia ' was generally confined to the Southern Colony, and 
the name of ' Plymouth Company ' was assumed by the Northern Colony. From 
the former the States south of the Potomac may be said to have had their origin, and 
from the latter the States of New England." — Story on the Constitution. 

f This is very important as marking a point of decided departure from the feudal 
tenures based on military service, or tenures in capite. However rapidly the process 
of undermining feudal institutions may have been going on, it must have been a 
very bitter pill for a sovereign like King James to give such a signal recognition of 
their decadence, for be it known his signature to this charter not only broke in on all 
precedent for military (capite) tenure to land in America, but established the most 
democratic tenure then known in England, tenure by " free and common socage." 
This tenure existed only in Kent (Eng.) under the title gavelkind, "given to all 
the males alike." Says Blackstone, " It is probable the socage (plow service) 
tenures were the relics of Saxon liberty, retained by such persons as had neither 
forfeited them to the king nor been obliged to exchange their tenure for the more 
honorable though more burdensome tenure of knight service. This is peculiarly re- 
markable in the tenure which prevails in Kent, called gavelkind, which is ac- 
knowledged to be a species of socage tenure, the preservation whereof inviolate 
from the innovations of the Norman conqueror is a fact universally known, and 
those who have thus preserved their liberties are said to hold in free and common 
socager 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 33 

in a trading company composed of a select few, of which the 
actual settler was not one ; then in a Local Council, in which he 
had no voice ; then in a Supreme Council at home, which could 
never know him and could never have sympathy with his 
rights ; lastly in the king himself, who not only created and dis- 
missed the Supreme Council at pleasure, but held the power of 
making or revising their legislation. It was a truly wonderful 
scheme, and one, in most respects, well calculated to tickle the 
vanity of a weak prince. What wonder that, under it, the Local 
Council got to be a pure aristocracy entirely independent of the 
settlers, the people ! What wonder that no element of popular 
liberty found its way into the government of the colony when 
its code of laws was completed and received kingly sanction ! 
And what wonder the parliament of England speedily raised the 
question — a question which would not down until the American 
revolution — of how far the king was a usurper of their powers 
in assuming legislative authority abroad ! Even the religion of 
the colonist was, under this memorable instrument, to be that 
of the Church of England. 

One may well say all this was a long way off from what kings 
were afterwards taught to grant, and from that spirit of free 
thought and action which now pervades our institutions. Under 
such a charter and code permanent colonization at a distance 
from home, and in a spot where everything invited to freedom, 
was impossible. Every effort to plant under it, or to make it 
work for the good of emigrants, showed its imperfections in glar- 
ing colors. The weeding and paring process began early. 

ENGLAND'S PERMANENT FOOTHOLD.— [JndQv this 
charter the London Company founded Jamestown, Va., May, 
1607, one hundred and nine years after Cabot's discovery of the 
Continent, and forty-one after Spain had settled Florida. As the 
Puritan, destined for the Hudson, was blown upon Cape Cod, so 
the three ships with the Virginia Colony were blown past 
Raleigh's old settlement at Roanoke, and into the waters of the 
Chesapeake. One year would have settled the fate of James- 
town, but for Captain Smith, who had fought for freedom in 
Holland, roamed France for pleasure, visited Egypt for study, 



34 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC- 

plunged into Mohammedan warfare for glory, escaped from Con- 
stantinople to Russia for safety, and now entered as hero on a 
drama the most exciting and thrilling of all. Even his ingenuity 
in handling hostile natives, and his unbending will, stronger than 
that of cowardly governor (Wingfield and Ratcl^ffe) or famished, 
rebellious emigrant, could not have saved the colony, but for an 
amendment to the charter government which robbed the king of 
the supreme legislative powers he had reserved and turned them 
over to the company and its governors. This gave to Smith's 
genius a fuller rein. He made the gentlemen colonists work, 
saying, " He who would not work might not eat." He entreated 
the company to send " more suitable persons for Virginia." " I 
entreat you," he writes, " rather send but thirty carpenters, hus- 
bandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons and diggers 
up of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand of such as we 
have." Hopeless as his task seemed he held his control of the 
unruly colonists till disabled by an accidental explosion of gun- 
powder he was forced to go to England for treatment, without 
reward of any kind but the applause of conscience and the 
world. He was the true father of Virginia, and, vastly more, the 
pioneer who secured to the Saxon race its first permanent foot- 
hold within the borders of the United States. Virginia was a 
fact, but as yet a limitless fact. And this it proved, and con- 
tinued to prove, that just as the king was shorn of his charter 
powers, and just as the Home Council and the governors were 
deprived of their arbitrary control, and the same passed over to 
and began to be exercised by the people under the forms 
of law, in that proportion the colony throve. America was 
no place for restricted individual rights nor absolute foreign 
authority. 

TOBACCO, COTTON AND 5Z^F^5.— The Jamestown 
colonist got to be an industrious man. It was a clear question of 
the " survival of the fittest." He grew tobacco and the cereals, and 
found both profitable. The former became a staple and a cur- 
rency. He was not satisfied with his farm title. It was amended 
so as to make him secure. He clamored for representation. 
This too he got. The first colonial assembly met at Jamestown, 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 35 

June, 16 19. This was the dawn of legislative liberty in America. 
They who had been dependent on the fickle will of a governor 
demanded a code of laws based on those of England. Such a 
code came over in 162 1. It was a form of government away 
outside of the harsh and narrow provisions of the charter. 
Under it the colony got a parliament, very like that of England. 
Thenceforth Virginia was the Virginia of the colonists. It was 
their country, and their country reached from North Carolina to 
Halifax, and as far west as imagination chose to go. The king 
was still king, and of a new empire, but of a people who had 
gradually acquired rights they would never voluntarily part with. 
He had a rival though. In 162 1 the first cotton-seed was planted 
with success. The infant thus cradled grew into " King Cot- 
ton." Strange to say, only one year before, August, 1620, four- 
teen months after the first Virginia Assembly, four months be- 
fore the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock, more than a hundred 
years after slavery had disappeared from England, six years after 
the abolition of serfdom in France, a Dutch man-of-war entered 
the James river and landed twenty negroes for sale. Unfortu- 
nately the constitution and code of laws which were received by 
the colony the next year had been prepared without knowledge 
of this event, or they might have contained some clause prohibit- 
ing this kind of commerce. As it was, the commerce grew and 
the slave system got hold, in spite of a strong sentiment among 
the better class of colonists against it, and in spite of a few feeble 
colonial laws passed with a design to discourage it. By one of 
those strange contradictions in human affairs, the colony which 
had in fourteen years converted a despotic charter into a repre- 
sentative form of government, and had actually become an 
asylum of liberty,* became also the abode of hereditary bonds- 
men.f 

* The Virginia Colony had not as yet paid much attention to its religious code, 
and even the heady Puritan could find an asylum there. His presence was not inter- 
dicted till the democratic revolution in England under Cromwell gave political im- 
portance to religious sects. Then to tolerate a Puritan was to favor a member of a 
republican party. 

f Negro slavery was certainly an offence against the better instincts of all the 
colonies. Though all the earlier ones tolerated it, there was no lack of discourag- 



36 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

A ROYAL PROVINCE.— King James got jealous of the 
London Company. On the plea of mismanagement its charter 
was cancelled. Virginia was free from a control which, while it 
made a colony possible, had ever been an interference. Charles 
I. (162 5- 1 649), in accordance with his father's intentions, would 
regard it as a Royal Province, to be governed by himself, but 
fortunately more with a view to securing a revenue from its 
tobacco and other staples, than with a design to interfere seriously 
with the. political rights of the colonists. But up came the 
question of boundary. Virginia had no limits but those in the 
charter, and it was gone. There was, therefore, no Virginia for 
the map. Only the settlement called Virginia remained, and 
the best it could do was to claim the old charter limits, whether 
the charter existed or not. It therefore crossed swords with 
the Marylander who had come with his grant right into the 
midst of the Virginia territory. But the flurry soon passed 
over. The fate of Charles I. was sealed. Virginia thought to 
fight Cromwell, but by capitulating got terms which were almost 
equivalent to independence. Cromwell never bothered himself 
about governors nor anything else outside of the mere question 
of allegiance. So the colonists elected their own governors, and 
the custom once established, it ever after prevailed. A grand 
step toward popular independent government in the new world ! 

MARYLAND CHARTER.— -The mind of the Virginian was 
not clear as to his country. Under the charter of 1606 his 
domain was practically boundless to the north. Under an 
amended charter he could claim to 41° (200 miles north of Old 
Point Comfort), which was vaguely supposed to be the southern 
limit of New England, or the southern boundary of the New 
Netherlands. At any rate he would, now that he was pros- 
perous and had ambitions, push his enterprises north of the 

ing laws and regulations. The force of sentiment outside of themselves, especially 
that sentiment bom of traffic and cupidity, was stronger than the true and just col- 
onial instinct, and hence ordinances discouraging slavery became dead letters. But 
time would have corrected the errors of cupidity, all along the colonial line, had 
it not happened that as long as the slave traffic was active, the climate, staples and 
commercial tastes of the Southern colonies pennitted the introduction of the slave 
element to such an extent that heroic action against the system became impolitic. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 37 

Potomac and Susquehannah. But, alack ! he was suddenly cut 
ofif! Sir George Calvert had tried a Catholic settlement at 
Avalon on the coasts of Newfoundland, but cold, a barren soil, 
and French fishermen, had driven him away. He would try 
again in a more favorable clime. His influence with the king 
(James I.) was great, and the canceling of the Virginia patents 
had restored to the monarch his authority over the soil. The 
French, the Dutch, the Swedes, were preparing to come. Why 
shouldn't Calvert have a slice of kindly soil for his experiment ? 
He got it, and evidently wrote his own charter.* It gave him a 
clean slice of what was Virginia. Its bounds were the ocean, 
the 40th parallel, the meridian through the fountain of the 
Potomac, that river to its mouth, and a line from Watkin's 
Point to the ocean-^almost the Maryland of to-day. Calvert's 
(Lord Baltimore's) province was a creation with a definite 
boundary, the first, it may be said, thus far,t and it was Mary- 
land, after Maria, wife of Charles I. Lord Baltimore was a 
Proprietary^ that is, the country was his estate. He was 
governor, subject to the provisions of the charter, which were 
very liberal indeed, securing to the colonists representative 
government from the start, and therein contrasting strongly with 
the Virginia charter, granted to mere trading companies. 
Christianity was by the charter made the law, but no preference 
was given to any sect, and equality in, religious rights not less 
than in civil freedom, was assured. Sir George Calvert died 
April 15, 1632, but the charter was confirmed to his son, 
Cecil, June 20, 1632. As has been noted, Virginia was 

* " The nature of the document itself, and concurrent opinion, leave no room to 
doubt that it was penned by the first Lord Baltimore himself, although it was finally 
issued to his son." — Bancroft^ vol. i., 241. 

f Ignorance of the geography of the interior left many of the early grants with- 
out western limits. Some had the clause inserted " and extending through to the 
Pacific," or " extending from ocean to ocean." But in general they were vague, 
and the source of much future difficulty, as were those north and south boundaries 
which so overlapped each other. The failure of the successive monarchs to under- 
stand what their predecessors had done, the lapsing of so many grants by time or 
by non-user, the desire of each monarch to gratify his friends or to map a new 
colonial policy of his own, all these contributed to the confusion of charter bound- 
aries. 



38 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

furious over this robbery of her domain. She at first warred a 
little about it, then carried her case to England, but the king's 
privy council told her to go home and cultivate amicable rela- 
tions with her neighbor. Her wrath had time to cool while the 
boundary between her and Maryland was being adjusted. Cal- 
vert knew quite well the folly of attempting a Catholic experi- 
ment, no matter how liberal its provisions, so near the Virginia 
settlement, and within its claimed limits, without first securing 
for it carefully determined boundaries. Virginia's church was 
the established church, which, liberal at first, was nearly ripe for 
that uncharitable statute which banished all non-conformists 
and made their return a felony. 

SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND. — MsLtch. 27, 1634, 
Calvert founded his village of St. Mary's, and his state. The 
Ark and Dove bore his colony. He treated with the Indians 
and bought their soil. Thus his possession was peaceable, ex- 
cept that Clayborne of Virginia wanted to drive him away by 
force.* The colonists stuck from the start, and, unlike those of 
Virginia, went to work. In six months St. Maiy's was ahead 
of Jamestown in its sixth year, f In one year the people, not 
liking Calvert's Code, passed one of their own which, though it 
did not go into effect, resulted in such modifications of Calvert's 
as they wished. The " religious freedom " of the charter took 
as wide shape in the statutes as was then possible. It embraced 
all Christians, but with the awful proviso that, " Whatever per- 
son shall blaspheme God or shall deny or reproach the Holy 
Trinity, or any of the three persons thereof, shall be punished 
with death." Nowhere in the United States is religious opinion 
now regarded as a proper subject for such a penalty or for any 
penal enactment at all. We have seen how Virginia profited by 
the neglect of Cromwell, under the English Commonwealths 

* The native tribe had been punished by the Susquehannahs on the north, and 
was just about to quit its seats on the Potomac, when Calvert came. He therefore 
was able to drive a good bargain with them, and to quiet his title with a few pres- 
ents of clothes, axes, hoes, knives, etc. 

f " Within six months it (the Maryland colony) had advanced more than Virginia 
had done in as many years." — Bancroft, vol. i., p. 247. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 39 

New England did the same. But Maryland went through the 
fires of angry disputation. With the king gone, where was the 
Proprietary who held from and under him ? ** Gone too," said 
Virginia. " Gone too," said Cromwell, though he was going to 
trust to Calvert's good sense to manage things. But Virginia, 
through the ambitious Clayborne, got over into Maryland, and 
under cover of a commission actually ran away with the 
government. Maryland had invited Puritans. They were 
strong in Anne Arundel, and were Cromwellian republicans. 
Calvert was shrewd enough to save his charter, but when he 
went to reduce the Puritans he was whipped and his agent, 
Stone, was imprisoned. Clayborne could reduce neither Catho- 
lics nor Puritans. Thus matters stood for years, till the people 
voted themselves a lawful assembly, without dependence on 
other power in the province, and enacted compromise laws, 
which Virginia ultimately assented to, and which both Puritan 
and Catholic could respect. Thus Maryland like Virginia 
was, at the restoration of Charles II. (1660), in full possession 
of liberty based on the sovereignty of the people, and like 
Virginia it had so nearly completed its political institutions 
that not much further progress was made toward freedom and 
independence till the period of final separation from England 
(1776). 

THE PLYMOUTH COUNCH.—SNq must now go back a 
little in time and look northward. The Virginia charter of 1606 
incorporated two monstrous companies, the London Company 
(Southern colony), and Western or Plymouth Company (North- 
ern colony). We have seen how the London Company suc- 
ceeded at Jamestown, and how it was shorn of its rights in Vir- 
ginia. What did the Western or Plymouth Company do with 
its splendid grant of lands (in Virginia remember) between New 
York and Labrador, 41° to 45°, and its magnificent privileges? 
Under Popham himself it settled at St. George on the Kennebec 
(1607). But Popham died and the colony failed.* Inspired 

* The Maine historians make much of this settlement, not only as ante-dating all 
others in Northern Virginia or New England, but as going to show the directness 
of the Maine title from the Virginia charter of 1606, and therefore the wrongfulness 



40 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

anew by Smith, the Virginia hero, who had (1614) scoured the 
coast from the Penobsccrt to Cape Cod and named the country 
New England, another trial was made, but the colony never 
landed. Still Smith's enthusiasm was all pervading. A new 
and independent charter was sought for the company. This set 
the Londoners and WesterHngs to fighting. But clashing in- 
terests could not stay results. Out of the conflicting claims 
came a charter to forty of the king's favorites, many of them 
members of both the old competing companies, and the best 
men in them. It was one of the most sweeping papers which 
ever bore royal signature. Its date was Nov. 3d, 1620, and it 
incorporated "The council established at Plymouth (England) 
for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New Eng- 
land, in America." 

NATURE OF THIS CHARTER.— ^ote first the size of the 
territory it covered, and how it wiped out the entire field given 
to both the London and Western Companies in the charter of 
1606, also how it silenced forever the legal claim of Virginia (not 
the popular claim) to her domain north of 40°. It extended in 
breadth from 40° to 48° north latitude, and from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific ; that is, it embraced nearly all the inhabitable British 
possessions of to-day,* all New England, New York, more than 
half of New Jersey, nearly all Pennsylvania, and the mighty 
sweep westward of all these States. So grand an empire had 
never been given away by a single stroke of the pen. But more, 
and worse, the charter gave to forty men the soil, the sole power 
of legislation, the selection of all officers, the formation of a gov- 
ernment, and powers over commerce as arbitrary as those con- 

of the claim which Massachusetts subsequently made good. Had the Kennebec 
colony stuck, they would have much better ground for their position ; or had not the 
character of titles shifted. Even at this early date the principle was abroad that a 
title confirmed by actual settlement was better than one with no such substantial 
backing. 

* It paid IK* attention to the French possession of New France, which was 
already permanently occupied at Port Royal, Quebec, and many other places 
along the St. Lawrence. The thought evidently was to rely on the old Cabot 
title by discovery, claim the continent, and drive off settlers of other nationalities if 
necessary. 



BUILDNIG GEOGRAPHICALLY. 4| 

veyed to the Cabots by Henry VII., in " that oldest American 
State paper in England." No regard was shown for the liberty 
of a single colonist. Everything was left to the council at Ply- 
mouth. It was too big a monopoly to be of any use. Parlia- 
ment rose in angry question of the king's right to thus fritter 
away the public domain. France laughed at the thought of thus 
appropriating her lands, in which settlements had existed for a 
score of years. The patentees fell to furious wrangling about 
their respective privileges, and while the confusion was at its 
height something far-reaching and wonderful took place. 

FIRST PURITAN ADVENT.— ThQ Reformation had made 
possible the Puritan and Pilgrim, the man who wanted, and was 
bound to have — for himself — religious and political liberty, at 
whatever cost. When he imbibed Genevan Calvinism he drank 
in at the same time the spirit of the Genevan republic. This 
was the ferment which was working in feudal England when 
Henry VIII. cut off the political horns of the pope, and which 
came to the surface when Edward VI. permitted the Protestant 
sects to show their heads without danger from the block. One 
of these sects, Cranmer's, wanted mild reforms. This one be- 
came the Church of England. The other would have no cere- 
mony not enjoined by the word of God, no divine right of 
bishops, no inequality of clergy, no fixed rule of worship or in- 
terpretation appointed by parliament, hierarchy or king. This 
was Puritanism, pure and undefiled, and it had the sanction of 
Martyr, Calvin, Hooper and Rogers. Under Mary, the Puritan, 
as well as the Episcopalian, had to leave England, if he would 
talk and act his convictions. He went to Amsterdam, Leyden, 
Frankfort, Geneva, to every asylum on the continent, and he 
learned much. When he came back under Elizabeth he was no 
longer a monarchist, but wanted a state of his own, one in which 
he had a personal voice; therefore he was a politician,* and now 
doubly dangerous and doubly to be despised. The hard meas- 
ure of Elizabeth to exile or hang all who should be absent from 

* Even the English church charged them with seeking a popular state ; and 
Elizabeth declared they were more perilous than the Romanists. The Romanists 
Were for monarchy, and Elizabeth did not despise them on that account. 



42 ' BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the English service for a month sent the Puritan abroad again, 
and especially the stiffer-necked branch called Independent or 
Separatist. The more politic remained to make Elizabeth 
ashamed of her hanging of Barrow and Greenwood, and to teach 
her that the spirit of liberty was sufficiently abroad to endanger 
the chances of her successor to the throne if she carried on in 
too high-handed a manner.* 

Elizabeth, " dead and forgotten in four days," was succeeded 
by James I., a most cowardly sprig of royalty, who was a Puritan 
in Scotland, but who was no sooner over the border than 
he couldn't distinguish between the interests of the English 
church and his own political prerogatives-. " No bishop, no 
king " was his inspiration, and the Puritan was more a " viper " 
than ever, even if the king was a Protestant. He would " harry 
them all out of the kingdom, or, better, hang them, if they did not 
conform," and then when the Pilgrim wanted to go he had to 
escape. Wherever he went in Holland or on the continent this 
was true of him : he was industrious, nearly always a farmer or 
tradesman, frugal, patient, pious, shrewd, liberty-loving, and 
though a Pilgrim, attached to his nationality. He was not con- 
tent in Holland, but, like others, began to dream of a colony in 
the wilderness which should augment the king's realm, give him 
the government of his native land without its hardships, and thus 
secure him the liberty he wanted. Whom should he consult? 
It was 1617, and the London Company which had given life to 
Virginia was yet in existence and claiming everything north of 
North Carolina. It therefore was consulted, and would have 
responded favorably but for bickerings. The king was petitioned 
for a charter. He promised nothing, but gave out the impres- 
sion that if the Puritan would only betake himself to America 
and there behave himself he would be let alone. That was 
something ; perhaps all he had a right to expect. Then he went 
back to the London Company, which granted a patent, but being 
made in the name of one who failed to accompany the Pilgrim 
expedition it was of no use. There was nothing left but the 

* " The precious spark of liberty had been kindled and preserved by the Puritans 
alone." — Carte's England, iii., 707. 




PLYMOUTH ROCK.. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 43 

king's promise of neglect. With this for a charter the " Speed- 
well" (60 tons) and " Mayflower " (120 tons) were equipped for 
the voyage. A solemn fast (the original of the American thanks- 
giving), and the Ley den Pilgrims- sailed for Southampton. 
There the English faithful came aboard, and the two ships dared 
the ocean voyage. But the " Speedwell " gave out, and the two 
ships put back to Plymouth, where the rotten one was dismissed. 
A hundred souls, men, women and children,* crowded into the 
" Mayflower," and on the 6th of September, 1620, the ship was 
off again, off for the Hudson. Bad navigation or storms brought 
the Pilgrim boat to the bleak coast of Cape Cod, Nov. 9, 1620, 
thirteen years after the founding of Jamestown, and less than 
two months after the signing of the wonderful charter of the 
Plymouth Council, above mentioned. After a period of pro- 
specting, on Monday, Dec. 11 (say Dec. 22 new style), 1620, a 
landing was effected at Plymouth rock, and actual New Eng- 
land had a beginning. The colony was that of Plymouth, 
whence they had sailed. 

The government of the Pilgrim,t framed in the cabin of the 
" Mayflower," provided for a " proper democracy " in the Colony 
of Northern Virginia, based on religious and political rights. It 
promised loyalty to the Crown, which was its bid to be let alone. 
The Pilgrim weathered two years of cold, barrenness, and adver^ 
sity which would have broken up any colony but a Pilgrim 
colony. His tenacity, industry, thrift, morals, family, organizing 
power, memory of wrongs, and intense love of freedom, gave him 
a foothold in spite of cheerless climate and unproductive soil. 
He placated the Indians by treaty, raised corn, drove a brisk 
trade, started his " little democracy," worshipped as he wished, 
partitioned his lands. Were his titles good ? The Indians had 

* The pilgrim brought his family along. The Virginian came without wife or 
child. Smith's prayer was for farmers, mechanics, and men with families. Till 
such came colonization was mere adventure. 

■f " Puritan " and " Pilgrim " are fairly interchangeable. The latter was the former 
in exile, before he crossed the Atlantic. Not all Puritans were Separatists and In- 
dependents. In general the Puritans were more diplomatic than the Pilgrims. 
Puritanism covers both very well. 



44 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

said, " Come; " that was as good as a purchase. The principles 
of English law, and natural justice, said they were good. So the 
Pilgrim was secure. He struck deep in his own barren soil and 
branched out to the Connecticut, to Cape Ann, and to the Ken- 
nebec. 

PLYMOUTH COUNCIL,— ThQshreyNd Pilgrim heard of the 
wonderful grant to the Plymouth Council and knew it embraced 
his Plymouth. He worked into the good graces of the Council 
through the influence of Gorges and got a sub-patent. This 
attempt of the great Council to portion its powers and lands 
again brought up the grave question in parliament of how far 
the king had made a fool of himself in parting with so much 
territory and power without parliamentary sanction. The Coun- 
cil, monopolists as they were called, and the king were pitted 
against the parliament and such level-headed lawyers as Sir 
Edward Coke, who wanted the power of the Council broken and 
a free opportunity given to colonize the rest of New England. 
The Council, forced partly to the wall, determined to make the 
best of a bad bargain by breaking up its immense domain. There 
was a scramble for corporation patents. Mason got a patent for 
the lands between the Salem river and the farthest head of the 
Merrimac (1621). Gorges and Mason took a patent for Laconia, 
the whole country between the sea, the St. Lawrence, the Mer- 
rimac and Kennebec, and the plantations on the Piscataqua, as 
well as the towns of Portsmouth and Dover came into being, 
say 1623. Mason got a second patent (1629) for the country 
between the Merrimac and Piscataqua, which was afterwards 
known as the New Hampshire patent, and so the business ran 
into interminable confusion and endless law-suits. The omnip- 
otent Council of Plymouth was fast frittering away its lands, 
influence and prerogatives. 

SECOND PURITAN ADVPNT—The Puritan at home 
chafed under the constraints of English law and the severities 
of the English church. Minister White, of Dorchester, though 
not a Separatist, would lead a colony of the faithful across the 
waters. Despite his puritanism, he formed a company, which 
bought of the expiring Plymouth Council a belt of land extend- 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 45 

ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and fi-om three miles south 
of the river Charles and Massachusetts bay to three miles north 
of every part of the river Merrimac. This was a strong com- 
pany in men, for it included such as Sir Henry Roswell, Sir 
John Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endicot, 
Simon Whetcomb, and afterwards Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, 
Pynchon, Eaton, Saltonstall, and Bellingham, all names well 
known in colonial history. Endicot, the sternest kind of a Pur- 
itan, was selected to begin the work of establishing a plantation 
of " the best of their countrymen " on the shores of New Eng- 
land and in safe seclusion, where the corruptions of human 
superstition might never invade. Not trusting to this patent 
from the Council, for it was in contravention of half a dozen 
others, it was confirmed by a charter from Charles I., and " The 
Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New Eng- 
land " was on its feet. Its date is March 4, 1629. The king 
was evidently mad when he signed it. He had made up his 
mind to govern his foreign territory, or have it governed, as he 
pleased and without the aid of parliament. So, the provisions 
of the charter were not unlike those of Virginia, not a whit more 
liberal as to the rights of the emigrant, equally as hard and close 
as to the powers of the corporation, which had even the right to 
elect its own governors. As in Virginia, " the blessed boon of 
freedom " for the colonist, the right to local self-government, 
was to come about over the wreck of corporation codes and 
amid the ruin of original charter claims. 

MASSACHUSETTS COLONY.— {Jnd^Y the auspices of 
this Company of Massachusetts Bay, the Puritans struck Salem, 
but Charlestown got a few of the new-comers, and so did the vil- 
lage of Boston, soon to become the capital. These Puritans 
came full of notions of a church wherein they might worship 
after their liking, and with no, or very narrow, notions of a po- 
litical state. But they were shrewd and business-like. The 
thought of being under a company whose members resided at a 
distance was not pleasant. An original idea struck them. Why 
not pick the whole company up and carry it across the waters ? 
It could execute the provisions of the charter better on the spot 



46 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

than 3,000 miles away. That is just what was done, and in a 
twinkling it changed a commercial corporation into an inde- 
pendent provincial government. Governors, deputy governors, 
members of the company, and all interested became colonists — 
a happy Puritan band intent on their religion and church, but 
wide awake as to their political freedom and all local and ma- 
terial interests. They held in their own hands the key to their 
religious asylum, and unceremoniously locked the doors against 
all enemies to its harmony and safety. Winthrop, the aristo- 
cratic, pious, conforming, discreet Winthrop, came over as 
governor. The hard trials and disappointments of colonists, 
especially on a shore so bleak, passed, the community settled 
down to an " assembly of all the freemen of the colony," at 
Boston. Their first effort was a sort of elective aristocracy. 
Their second, the next year, 1 631, was a sort of commonwealth 
of the chosen people in covenant with God — a theocracy, if you 
please. No man was admitted to the freedom of the body politic 
unless he was a member of some of the Puritan churches. But 
in all things their government was representative. That was a 
great point. The colony was politic. It encouraged peaceful 
barter with the Indians. It sent messengers of peace to the 
Pilgrims, and to all former colonists. It traded with the Dutch 
on the Hudson. It invited and got large accessions of colonists 
from England, the very best men there, such as Cotton, and 
Hooker, teachers and thinkers at home, the fittest material for 
preachers, governors, and long-headed diplomatists abroad. 
When the ministers would hold too hard to the theocratic idea, 
the freemen inquired more deeply into their liberties and privi- 
leges, demanded annual elections, introduced the ballot-box, 
instead of the old-fashioned show of hands, got to be as noisy 
and self-assertive as the modern politician. With the exception 
of a limited suffrage, the democracy of Massachusetts was as 
perfect then as now. Unfortunately the suffrage was limited 
only to the faithful. Hence the split with Roger Williams and 
his expulsion as an heretical fellow who taught that " The civil 
magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion ; 
should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul." 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 47 

This doctrine would blot out the felony if non-conformity, 
would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship, 
would give protection to every form of religious faith, would 
make every freeman a voter whether Puritan or not, would, in a 
word, smash the whole Puritan fabric. And then he had com- 
mitted other offense by writing an article in which he argued 
that an English patent could not invalidate the rights of the 
Indian to the soil. This was very like treason against the charter 
of the colony. The very wise Bradford thought Williams crazy. 
All in all, he had to go, this first person in Christendom to assert 
fylly the doctrine of freedom of conscience, the equality of opin- 
ions before the law, and this defender of them even in advance 
of the immortal John Milton and Jeremy Taylor. And his going 
meant what ? 

THE BIRTH OF RHODE ISLAND.— W\\X\z.ms> stopped 
at Seekonk, but that was within the Plymouth patent. He 
pushed on to a spot where patents would not interfere, and hav- 
ing found it he called it Providence (1636). A deed from 
Miantonomoh quieted his title as to the Indians. His govern- 
ment was a pure democracy. Williams gave all power and lands 
to the people, and they decided everything in their conventions. 
A magistracy, executive officers, governors, were things of an 
after time. 

CONNECTICUT TAKES SHAPE.— ThQ shrewd Puritan 
would head off the Dutch who were creeping toward the valley 
of the Connecticut. The soil was in the Earl of Warwick, as 
proprietary, under a grant from the Council of New England, or 
rather, in Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke and John Hampden, 
as his assigns. But before they could colonize it the people of 
New Plymouth had built a trading-house at Windsor, and soon 
had settlements at Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield. To the 
Puritans the valley of the Connecticut was indeed a new Hesperia. 
Thither they marched in no limited numbers under the lead of 
such as Hooker and others — emigrants from the most valued 
citizens, the earliest settlers, and oldest churches of Massachu- 
setts Bay. The bloodthirsty Pequods could not intimidate them 
nor stay their westward march, but went down before it even to 



48 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the last of their tribe. The Puritan was a soldier as well as 
preacher. At New Haven, too, an independent Puritan colony 
sprang up with Davenport as pastor and Theophilus Eaton as 
governor, for twenty years (1638), with no statute-book but the 
Bible, and no freemen but the elect. 

UNITED COLONIES.— ?a.ssmg the long legal fight be- 
tween the old Plymouth Council and the Company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, which brought Puritanism under the suspicion of 
aiming more at a distinct political sovereignty than at simply a 
church of its own, the time had come for closer co-operation 
among the New England colonists. At least this was the Mas- 
sachusetts thought, though it was doubtless suggested as much 
by her desire to extend her power and influence as anything else. 
The first move was on New Hampshire, which we have seen 
had existence under the Mason grants. She readily accepted 
the jurisdiction of the stronger colony, not doubting that a strict 
construction of her charter gave Massachusetts a valid claim on 
her territory, and wishing to avoid the disputes which were sure 
to follow refusal. The Pequod wars, and fears of the Dutch on 
the south, made it the policy of the Connecticut and New Haven 
governments to seek terms of union. 

The Indian tribes of Narragansett wanted the protection of 
Massachusetts, so they granted to her their Rhode Island. But 
Williams, who had gone to England to get a charter, returned 
with it (1644) in time to save his little state from absorption. 
Down in Maine, Rigby, purchaser of the Lygonia patent, and 
the assigns of Gorges, were in bitter legal warfare about their 
right to own and govern. They agreed to refer their disputes to 
Massachusetts as umpire. The shrewd umpire decided that 
neither party was right, and told them to go home and live at 
peace. This was impossible, and the umpire knew it, but it knew 
also that the plum, not yet ripe enough for the plucking, would 
be as soon as the disputes had impoverished both parties. An 
appeal was had to England, but she took no stock in the contro- 
versy. Then Massachusetts offered mediation. The role of 
King Stork was repeated. Unfolding her own charter and point- 
ing to its date, which was prior to that in the patents of either 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 49 

of the disputants, and pointing again to her boundary line, three 
miles north of any point on the Merrimac, she poHtely informed 
the Maine folks that they had all along been shearing goats, and 
that the territory was hers at any rate, which claim she made 
good. Thus did Massachusetts extend her territory to Casco 
Bay, and there was such a thing as the " United Colonies of 
New England." * 

A GENERAL ADVANCE.— AW this colonial growth and 
consolidation made free local legislaljon more desirable, and the 
interference of parliament more intolerable. The principle was 
echoed from Virginia to the Kennebec, that the colonies were 
entitled to their own parliaments and legislatures. Royalty was 
pitiably situated, for kings did not wish to go back on their 
grants and their claim to give their soil to whom they pleased, to 
be governed as they prescribed. This was the three-sided fight, 
now fully on, and not to be determined till the American Revo- 
lution settled it. During the time of Cromwell (1648-1659) the 
northern colonies, being republican in spirit, gained a more solid 
footing, and made great progress. As the issue of Puritanism 
was popular sovereignty, Cromwell was pleased with the New 
England situation. " He that prays best will fight best," was his 
judgment, and he did not doubt the ability of the Puritan to 
take care of himself, without a king at the helm in England. 

FREAKS OF CHARLES //.—The restoration of royalty 
in England (1660) was a period of apprehension in Colonial 
America. King Charles 11. (1660-1685) had no respect for ac- 
quired rights on this side the Atlantic, and none for the acts of 
his royal predecessors. He would be original or nothing, would 
tear everything to pieces in order to enjoy confusion or the 
pleasure of reconstruction. His freaks in upsetting old colonial 
lines and titles astonished the world. Fortunately their very 

* " The first conception of an American union entertained by the founders of New 
England was to join in political bonds only those colonies in which the people 
were of a similar way of thinking in theology, when, in the spirit of a theocracy, 
they aimed to form a Christian state in the bosom of the church. This was em- 
bodied in the New England Confederacy (1643-1684). Its basis was not broad 
enough to embrace the whole of this territory, or sufficiently just to include all its 
population." — Frothingham^ 5 Rise of the Republic. 
4 



50 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

wildness defeated their aim in many instances, and averted the 
confusion which would otherwise have attended the king's folly. 
In other instances, some of the colonies got what they had never 
been able to get. 

Winthrop got a splendid charter — in utter disregard of all for- 
mer grants — for Connecticut (1662), which embraced both the 
Hartford and New Haven colonies, and extended from the Nar- 
ragansett River to the Pacific Ocean, and the beauty of it was, it 
gave to the colonists unqualified power to govern themselves." 
Unwittingly, the king and Clarendon had set up a democracy 
where they only intended to create a close corporation. 

Rhode Island was favored with a new charter (1663) almost as 
liberal as the old. The little State could now defy Massachu- 
setts, who had denied her right to separate existence. 

For Maryland the restoration meant the restoration of its pro- 
prietary to all his charter rights and privileges. 

Virginia, through the faithless Sir William Berkley, was dis- 
membered by lavish grants to the king's courtiers. 

New Hampshire and Maine were metamorphosed, by reviving 
old proprietary rights therein, with a view of selling them to the 
Duke of Monmouth. 

The country from Connecticut River to Delaware Bay was 
(1664), in spite of the Dutch possessions and the charter just 
given to Winthrop, granted to the Duke of York ; so was part 
of Maine. Acadia was given back to France. 

Thus there was disturbance all along the coast-line, and the 
ingenuity of the young governments was taxed to the uttermost 
to bring order out of confusion, and save their identities, where 
it was at all possible. 

Massachusetts wanted her charter confirmed by the new king. 
A new one was granted which was not satisfactory, and the 
Puritans got so stiff about it as to throw them open to the sus- 
picion of wishing to set up an independent nation. Had Claren- 
don, the king's prime minister, lived, there is no telling what the 
hostility of the throne to the attitude the Puritan was forced to 
assume would have led to. There must have been war, disas- 
trous to the colonists, for they never talked bolder, though their 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 51 

strength was not equal to independence as yet. Clarendon gone, 
the king and parliament had enough on their hands for a time 
with home affairs, and during this happy neglect the colonists 
had opportunity to test their coherence and fighting qualities by 
defending themselves against that grand old Indian chieftain 
King Philip (1676). 

SMASHING AND PATCHING. — When Charles was 
about to turn his theft of Maine and New Hampshire over to 
the worthless Duke of Monmouth, Massachusetts got possession 
of the Gorges claims, paying $6,000 therefor, and thus threw 
another obstacle in the king's way. After this, Maine was given 
a separate government and ruled as a province of Massachu- 
setts (1680).* New Hampshire was not so easily quieted. The 
Mason claim proved worthless. Therefore Massachusetts lost 
her. hold, and New Hampshire was organized into a royal 
province, July 24, 1679, the first ever established in New Eng- 
land. It was a terrible experiment. The king's governor, 
Cranfield, would rule in accordance with English law and cus- 
tom, and the colonists would have their local legislature. The 
contention went on till Cranfield withdrew in despair from those 
" unreasonable people " (1684). 

Meanwhile the stiff-necked Puritans of Massachusetts had re- 
newed their battle for sovereignty. The king attacked their 
charter. It must go, and go it did June 18, 1684. There was 
now no bar between the colony and the will of the English 
sovereign. Was property secure ? Was religion in danger ? The 
outlook was gloomy in the extreme. 

DAWN OF NORTH CAROLINA.— Turn from the cold, 
sterile North to the sunny, fertile South, and to that part of it 
over which De Soto roamed at will, in which Coligny failed to 
plant his Huguenots, and Raleigh to carry out his designs. 
Here the freakish King Charles II. had enriched courtiers, like 
Clarendon, Monk, Lord Craven, Lord Ashley Cooper, Lord 
John Berkley, his brother, Sir William Berkley, Governor of 

* There were three titles in Maine at this time, (i) French, from the St. Croix 
to the Penobscot. (2) The Duke of York's, between the Penobscot and the Kenne- 
bec. (33 Massachusetts', between the Kennebec and Piscataqua. 



52 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Virginia, and Sir George Cartaret, by giving them, as proprie- 
taries, the Carolina country. It was not now (1660) entirely 
unpeopled. There were Puritans all around Cape Fear and Vir- 
ginians in Southern Virginia at Albemarle Sound, that is to say, 
in North Carolina; and it was to these Albemarle folks that 
Berkley (of Virginia) sent William Drummond, a Scotch Pres- 
byterian, as governor, with authority to institute a government 
which should include " an Assembly of the people and guarantee 
liberty of conscience." This foothold was not enough for 
Clarendon and his associates, who dreamed of greater wealth 
and power in this goodly country. A new charter was obtained 
which, in defiance of both Spain and Virginia, granted all the 
land between the Atlantic and Pacific, and between 29° and 36^ 
30' N. lat. ; that is, all North and South Carolina, Georgia, Ten- 
nessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, much of 
Florida and Missouri, nearly all of Texas and a portion of Mex- 
ico. In this boundless domain — an empire was evidently in- 
tended — every favor was extended to the proprietaries. To 
Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury, was entrusted the work of 
framing a constitution. He was an aristocrat, a skeptic and a 
scholar, and he and Locke, the philosopher, put their heads 
together. The result was that stupendous Carolina constitution 
which has ever since been a wonder to theorists and an object 
of praise or derision by statesmen. It created a nobility, be- 
friended the slave system, limited the elective franchise to free- 
holders of fifty acres, partitioned the land into counties, one-fifth 
for the proprietaries, one-fifth for the nobility, three-fifths for the 
people, beyond whose reach lay the executive, the judicial and 
even the legislative power. The Church of England was to be 
the national religion, though other religions were not proscribed. 
This constitution was signed March, 1670, and was heralded as 
"without compare." A splendid scheme for landgraves and 
lords of manors, for courts of heraldry and admiralty, but lu- 
dicrously inflated and inappropriate for a few planters and traders 
in Carolina cabins ! The fact is, the Virginia planter, the Puritan 
trader, the Quaker exile, went about their own legislation and 
governing, very much as if they had never heard of the proprie- 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 53 

taries and their magnificent scheme of empire, and the foundations 
of free local institutions were so deeply laid among them by the 
time (1681-1688) Sothel came over to administer the govern- 
ment of the proprietaries that, after a squabble of five or six 
years, they condemned him to a twelvemonth exile, and went 
peacefully on with their own affairs. Thus North Carolina came, 
not rapidly, to be sure, for there was no fixed minister till 1703, 
no church till 1705, no printing press till 1754, but modestly and 
quietly, as well she might, for her people were mostly the colon- 
ists of other colonies, who, tired of restraints, sought serene, 
unanxious life amid the granges of a southern clime. 

SOUTH CAROLINA.—So loudly had the coming of the 
Model Carolina Constitution (Shaftsbury's and Locke's) been 
proclaimed, and so much the soil and climate of Carolina been 
praised as the " beauty and envy of North America," that even 
before the former was signed, Joseph West, as agent and gover- 
nor for the proprietaries, and William Sayle, as clerical leader, 
started with a number of emigrants (1670) for the spot (Beau- 
fort) where the early Huguenots had engraved the lilies of France 
and erected the first Carolina fortress. But sailing into Ashley 
River, they stopped at the '* first high land,"* and there started the 
government of South Carolina, the people electing their own 
legislature and claiming the privileges of full sovereignty. It 
wasn't in accordance with the " Model Constitution," but it was 
popular, and when the " Model " came, it was resisted (1672). 
Still the proprietaries sent over colonists, dissenters as well as 
churchmen. Already (1671) Sir John Yeamans had arrived 
from Barbadoes with African slaves.f Dutch emigrants came 
from New York. An Irish colony came under Ferguson. Even 
Scotchmen settled at Port Royal, only to be assaulted and scat- 
tered by the Spanish. But the most remarkable thing in the 
history of colonial South Carolina is the fact that what Provi- 

* This spot is now a plantation. Not having any commercial advantages, it was 
soon overshadowed by Charleston and finally abandoned. 

f Thus slavery in South Carolina was coeval with the first plantations on Ashley 
River. It was the only one of the original thirteen States that from its cradle was 
essentially a planting State with slave labor. 



54 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

dence postponed for Coligny and Raleigh was, a hundred years 
later, to come about, and that through a persecution * which 
added greatly to the intelligence, moral worth and ultimate free- 
dom of the American colonies, and for Europe hastened the 
revolution in the institutions of the age. Escaping from a 
land where their religion was a crime, their estates liable to be 
confiscated, their children hardly their own, and their lives never 
safe. Huguenot fugitives from Languedoc, Rochelle, Bordeaux, 
Poictiers, and the beautiful valley of Tours, men of Puritan 
hardihood and zeal, but without superstition or fanaticism, came 
to Charleston and to the Santee. Out of such material did 
South Carolina spring. It was a pretty southern picture of 
unity in variety, for all were agreed to rule themselves, and re- 
sistance to the proprietaries and their visionary code continued 
till the English revolution of 1688, when a meeting of the repre- 
sentatives of South Carolina disfranchised CoUton, the proprie- 
tary governor, and banished him from the province. 

THE DUTCH REALM.— Th^ Dutch, splendid sailors, fond 
of trade, loving land and settlement, were abroad in the West 
Atlantic waters as soon as any nation. Henry Hudson's voyage 
(1606-1609) to Newfoundland, to Cape Cod, to the Chesapeake, 
to the Delaware, thence up the Hudson, his trading-post at 
Manhattan (New York), his claim, by right of discovery, to all 
the country from Cape Cod to the mouth of the Delaware, with 
no westward limit, as " The New Netherlands," make a story 
full of spirit and novelty. Had not his love of trade been so 
much greater than his love of acres and his tread not been more 
firm on the decks of his ships than on dry land, the Dutchman 
might have pushed his magnificent frontage of four hundred 
miles clear through to the Pacific. He was industrious, plod- 
ding, moral, brave, liberty-loving, in fact an excellent colonist, 
yet his early settlements were only trading-posts. Such was 
New York in 1623, and Lewistown, on the Delaware, in 163 1. 
In his attempt to push into the valley of the Connecticut he was 
absorbed by the Puritan. Then, in Delaware Bay, he was forced 

* The revocation of the edict of Nantes, October 22, 1685, ^'^^ ^^^ slaughter of 
the Huguenots in France. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. ^ 55 

to meet the Swede, who came along with his liberal Christian 
scheme, prepared under the auspices of Gustavus Adolphus 
himself, who was backed by all Germany. 

SWEDISH ADVENT.-— Without charter, or patent, or grant 
of any kind, but relying on such title as purchase from the In- 
dian might give when backed by actual settlement, the Swede 
sailed into the Delaware (1638), built a fort at Christiana Creek, 
and colonized Delaware anew. Then pushing to Upland, Tini- 
cum, and even to the Falls of the Delaware (Trenton), he claimed 
by actual settlement parts of the three States of Delaware, New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania as New Sweden. The Swede's peace- 
ful Indian policy, his quiet religious zeal, the beauty and balmi- 
ness of his new possessions, the feeling of protection that the 
fame of his arms in Europe engendered, made New Sweden a 
desirable home for colonists. But his presence was a bold break 
into the New Netherland country. The Dutch remonstrated, but 
feared, for Gustavus was a famous fighter. Still they could not 
bear the loss of their trade which occupancy of both banks of 
so important a stream as the Delaware, by the Swedes, threatened. 
Resorting to a shrewd trick, they built a fort at Newcastle, below 
the Swedish settlement, and thus hemmed the interloping Scan- 
dinavian in. In a thoughtless hour the Swedish governor at- 
tacked this fort and drove the Dutch out'. Stuyvesant, the 
Dutch governor, sent around a fleet from Manhattan (New 
York), which swept the Delaware of every Swedish stronghold 
(1635). But if his New Sweden was thus summarily wiped out, 
the Swede himself stayed ; his impress is still visible in all the 
land he possessed ; it was his Indian policy that Penn adopted ; 
his history is loved and honored ; he was entirely too good a man 
to drive away, and so became a factor, direct or indirect, in 
whatever appertained to after Delaware settlement. 

NEW JERSEY TAKES EORM— The Dutch were prouder 
than ever of their great realm, the restored New Netherlands. 
But there was a sad day ahead. Cromwell would strike Hol- 
land through her most prosperous colony. His plan of humil- 
iation was never fully carried out, but it was remembered by 
Charles II. This monarch gave the country from the Connecti- 



56 ^ BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

cut to the Delaware to the Duke of York, and then proceeded 
to expel the Dutch from a domain he contemptuously called his 
own. Stuyvesant yielded in the face of superior force (September, 
1664). In October, 1664, the Dutch and Swedes on the Dela- 
ware capitulated, and for the first time the whole Atlantic coast 
of the old thirteen States was in possession of England. The 
New Netherlands were speedily dismembered. Two months be- 
fore their fall, and in anticipation of that event, the Duke of 
York assigned to Berkley and Sir George Cartaret, both pro- 
prietaries of Carolina, the land between the Hudson and the 
Delaware (June 23, 1664). This became New Jersey, already 
peopled by Puritans, Quakers, Swedes and Scotch dissenters. 
Cartaret became governor, and he gave the colony a liberal form 
of government. 

THE QUAKER COMES.— K\\ sects were finding an asylum 
in America, why should not the peaceful, pious, liberty-loving 
Quaker ? His experiment was now ripe for trial. The son of a 
Leicestershire weaver and the apprentice of a Nottingham shoe- 
maker, George Fox, had questioned his life, till the revelation 
came that truth is only to be sought by listening to the voice of 
God in the soul. Creeds and superstitions and idle forms of 
men were vanities. The Spirit was the true monitor. This was 
freedom in the abstract. Monarchy, hierarchy, code, every 
outward, hampering, trammelling thing, must go down before it. 
The Quaker rise was remarkable and memorable. It was intel- 
lectual freedom bursting out amid the masses, the old philos- 
ophy of the Portico playing its part among the people. Quaker- 
ism, as developed by Barclay and Penn, became intellectual free- 
dom, the supremacy of mind, universal enfranchisement. Its 
reality was the Inner Light. As old as humanity, it embraced 
humanity. The first distinctive Quaker settlement was in West 
New Jersey at Salem, 1675, on a moiety of his province bought 
of Berkley. In this purchase Penn became interested. But 
the Quaker wanted more. Even the purchase of East New 
Jersey of the heirs of Cartaret was not enough. A grant must 
be had west of the Delaware. For this Penn became a suitor in 
1680. England owed his father ;^ 16,000 for signal service in 




EARLY EXPLORERS, PHILANTHROPISTS AND REVOLUTIONARY STATESMEN. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 57 

naval warfare against the Dutch. Grant of a province was an 
easy way to cancel th^e debt. In favor with the Duke of York, 
he obtained from Charles IL, Pennsylvania, which was included 
within three degrees of latitude and five of longitude, west of the 
Delaware. The Duke of York retained the three lower counties ; 
that is, the State of Delaware, as an appendage to his New York 
possessions. Penn launched his experiment in 1682, at Phila- 
delphia. His form of government was liberal. No colonist 
complained of power withheld or right endangered. His scheme 
is thus epitomized in his own language : " It is the great end of 
government to support power in reverence with the people, and 
to secure the people from the abuse of power ; for liberty with- 
out obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is 
slavery." His policy with the Indian was that of the Swede, 
who had preceded him. The native was dealt with as a man. 
His lands were bought, not stolen. Respect for native titles 
secured firmness for the titles of the colonists.* The experi- 
ment was a success from the start. The Quaker asylum on the 
Delaware was thronged by Welsh, and Irish and Scotch, as well 
as English. The Low Countries and all Germany sent their grand 
contingent of inoffensive, religious, land-getting, forest-reducing 
yeomanry. No American colony moved off under such auspices 
nor with so firm a tread. The Pennsylvania which was in Vir- 
ginia, in the New Netherlands, in the new Sweden, in the grant to 
the Duke of York, and as Lord Baltimore claimed partly in Mary- 
land (hence the dispute which ended in the celebrated Mason and 
Dixon line) took a title which remained unmolested by royalty, 
and a territorial shape which corresponds with that of to-day, ex- 
cept the small triangle on Lake Erie, which was afterwards added. 
DAWN OF NEW YORK.—^q^ York, like New Jersey, 
Delaware and Pennsylvania, came into existence by the partition 
of the New Netherlands. When the Dutch authority passed to 
England (1664), the soil of the New Netherlands passed to the 

* We are sorry, for the sake of sentiment, not to be able to draw the usual picture 
of Penn's treaty with the Indians. It is not historic, but a pretty piece of imagina- 
tion, due perhaps to West's painting of Penn, the Indians and the treaty tree. 
Penn's treaty was simply Penn's policy. 



58 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Duke of York. We have seen how he disposed of New Jersey, 
how he withdrew his right in order to let Penn have a clear 
title to Pennsylvania, how he reserved Delaware, and now his 
claim to New York remained. It was not the New York of to- 
day, but Vermont also, and a vague boundary to the west of the 
Massachusetts Colony. Nor had the Duke of York to plant 
a colony. It was already planted — a hardy Dutch colony, 
wealthy, populous, prosperous. He had but to frame a new 
government in a concessory spirit, and rule, through governors, 
an empire of strangers. But do his best, things went crooked. 
The republican spirit was abroad there as well as elsewhere. 
The local assembly became as clamorous for popular rights as 
that of any other colony. To deny a colonial parliament and 
the freeman's voice was to deprive the colonists of the rights of 
Englishmen. At last, October, 1683, seventy years after Man- 
hattan was first occupied, nineteen years after the territory passed 
to the English, the representatives of the people met in assembly, 
and their self-established " Charter of Liberties " gave New York 
a place in the colonial brotherhood of the Atlantic. Dutchman 
and Englishman agreed to a bond of government whose gist was 
" supreme legislation in governor, council and people, in general 
assembly met, franchise in freemen without qualification, trial by 
jury of peers, taxation only by consent of assembly, no martial 
law, free religion." A vast advance on Puritanism and on the 
State Churchism of Virginia. A last desperate effort was made 
by the Duke of York to hold defiant control of his domains and 
exercise arbitrary power, by a scheme to consolidate the colonies 
of the northeast into an empire. This attempt led to a general 
upsetting of boundaries and great uncertainty of titles, but the 
colonists were so securely nestled in their seats that few if any 
settlements lost their jurisdiction or identity. 

INDEPENDENT DELAWARE.— The three lower coun- 
ties which the Duke of York reserved as an appendage to his 
New York domain, when the charter of Pennsylvania was given 
to Penn, never became a part of New York, in fact. They were 
permitted to be ruled by the same council that was elected to 
rule Pennsylvania, all the people voting. But the Pennsylvania 



i 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 59 

strength largely preponderated in this council and its control 
grew irksome. So the lower counties withdrew, with the con- 
sent of Penn, and were incorporated into a separate government 
under Governor Markam. Thus did Delaware secure a sepa- 
rate existence (1691). It was the act of her own citizens. But 
one thing must be observed. The Stuart dynasty had fallen in 
England, and the revolution of 1688 had been completed by the 
induction of Protestant William and Mary. There was a new 
order of things beyond the water ; there was to be here. Dis- 
tinctive Delaware was not a Stuart creation, as were all the 
colonies before it. It therefore had no great change to contem- 
plate, no radical innovation to fear. It would go on smoothly, 
toward that destiny which awaited all the colonies, when the 
hour of Independence came. 

COLONY OF GEORGIA.— UkQ Delaware, Georgia was 
not to be a colony of the Stuarts. Every colony thus far had 
its motive for existence, moral, commercial or otherwise — 
Carolina for the Huguenot, Virginia for the Cavalier, Maryland 
for the Catholic, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware for 
the Quaker, New York and Connecticut for the commercial 
Dutchman and Puritan, Rhode Island for the Independent, 
Massachusetts and the Northeast for the Puritan. Georgia was 
to be dedicated to the cause of oppressed poverty in the old 
world. England and Spain had long been clashing about the 
Florida and Carolina boundary. England determined to settle 
the proud claim ©f Spain to a limitless Florida; in other words 
she determined to push her Carolina border as far down as she 
could, and thus open the magnificent area of the Savannah. 
Oglethorpe, the Penn of the South, a member of parliament, 
knew of it. He had long been impressed with the hardships of 
the British debtor laws ; had seen thousands of really good but 
unfortunate men thrown into prison, lose their all, and their 
caste too, by means of them ; had devised a plan of giving them 
a home in the new world, far from the scenes of their misery 
and disgrace, and where industry and freedom would enable 
them to recover manhood and fortune. To further this end 
George II. granted him a charter (June 9, 1732) for the country 



60 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

between the Savannah and Altamaha, and from the head springs 
of those rivers west to the Pacific. It was the province of 
Georgia (after the donor) and was placed for twenty-one years 
under the guardianship of a corporation " in trust for the poor." 
With 120 emigrants, Oglethorpe planted his ensign on the 
"high bluff" where Savannah now stands. His enterprise had 
been undertaken with the best wishes of benevolent England. 
It was welcomed by the natives of every neighboring tribe. 
Under the happiest auspices Oglethorpe began the Common- 
wealth of Georgia, " a place of refuge for the distressed people 
of Britain and the persecuted Protestants of Europe." And it 
was truly a refuge (but not for Catholics), for there came num- 
bers from England, from other colonies, and many Moravians 
from the continent of Europe. Augusta was laid out, 1734. 
Oglethorpe's government was somewhat crude, but it proved 
yielding and the colonists soon enlarged it to suit themselves. 
While it proscribed Catholics, it prohibited slavery. The fame 
of this youngest colony was much spread by Oglethorpe, who 
returned to England after a residence here of fifteen months. 
Scotch mountaineers came and pitched at New Inverness. 
Oglethorpe himself returned with large Moravian reinforce- 
ments. The enthusiasm of religion was abroad in the new 
country, and the colonists did not fear death. They were 
therefore brave to shove the Spanish back and make for Eng- 
land a southern border. Pushing to the St. John's and claiming 
it as the line, they planted Fort St. George, as the defence of the 
British frontier. At this Spain rallied. Negotiations ensued, 
and St. Mary's became the southern boundary of Oglethorpe's 
colony. But war soon followed, for England was not satisfied 
with the Spanish presence in Florida at all, neither was Spain 
satisfied with the Protestant menace which now hugged so 
closely her northern border. Oglethorpe valiantly defended his 
colony, drove off the Spaniards, and the " pious experiment " 
was on a substantial footing. The transition of power from the 
corporation of Georgia, at the expiration of its twenty-one 
years, to the people was easy, and sovereignty was as free and 
fully representative as in any colony. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 61 

REVOLUTION OF 1688.— One thing at least is clear in this 
sketch of colonial creations. The king ever denied the right of 
the English parliament to interfere with his power to grant lands 
and to ordain governments for them. The Stuarts clung to this 
principle with Spartan tenacity. 

Another thing is equally clear. The colonies, accepting the 
Stuart doctrine, always claimed exemption from the laws of the 
British parliament. But in doing so they did not thereby fall 
back entirely under the legislation prescribed by the king. 
Colonists claimed the rights of Englishmen. Among those 
rights was that to a parliament or assembly. Local legislation 
was theirs by their birthright as Englishmen. Sovereignty 
meant the same thing here as at home. This at first, and after- 
wards vastly more, for the colonists had come here because their 
voice was not large enough at home, nor their rights as freemen 
broad enough. Here the word freeman meant vastly more 
than at home. The American assembly was therefore more 
clearly representative, more popular, more directly responsible. 
All freemen were in general eligible to it. There were no 
titles, no estates, nothing to hamper full, free representation. 
The republican or democratic spirit which had been under- 
mining the Stuart dynasty at home and shaking monarchical 
institutions to their centres, here found that expression denied 
it at home. It here won a victory which the king withheld 
from his own parliament. But the time had come in England 
when Englishmen must speak more firmly through their parlia- 
ment. It too must be made stronger against royal claims ; in 
other words must become more truly representative of the 
wishes of the people. The Stuart who would further defy 
public opinion, who would blindly arrogate legislative power, 
who would refuse to move with the age and in obedience to 
overwhelming sentiment, must abdicate. This was the revolu- 
tion of 1688. For the glory of England they passed from the 
throne, leaving as their monuments in America a tier of Atlantic 
colonies which owed their titles and limits to royal charters, but 
which in liberty and enlightenment were an hundred years in 
advance of the last representative of the line. 



Q2 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

They were gone. The tide of liberty had rolled so high, 
even in England, as to engulf them. The people had assumed 
to sit in judgment on divinely appointed royalty. The old idea 
of a Christian monarchy resting on the law of God was exploded, 
and political power was to seek its origin in compact. Nothing 
was to bind freemen to obey government save their own solemn 
agreement. Power for the Stuart was a right. Power hence- 
forth was to be a trust, whose violation dissolved the obligation 
to allegiance. Supreme power was to be in the legislature, 
which was the true embodiment of the sovereignty of the peo- 
ple. In 1688 England had gotten as far on as Massachusetts in 
1620, or, for that matter, as any of the colonies at the date of 
their foundation. Yet not so far, for the parliament that arose 
to the full height of English sentiment in expelling the Stuarts 
and assuming to act as the guardian of power for the people, 
too boldly stood in the king's shoes. It was well enough at 
home, but when it claimed the right to legislate for the colonies, 
it was doing far more than smiting a dead Stuart ; it was doing, 
now that there was no Stuart to interpose his despotic veto, 
that which would arouse in America a sentiment of opposition 
full of remonstrance at first, full of revolution at last. The 
parliament's fight was always with the king ; now it would be 
direct with the colonies. Thus, by a strange conjuncture of 
affairs, the very dynasty which had all along stood in the way 
of English progress and reform, had been not only the protec- 
tion of the colonies, but the chief contributor to the triumph of 
the republican spirit within them and to their ultimate inde- 
pendence. 

But as yet the consequences of the change in dyjjasty could 
not be foreseen. Even if some prophetic soul could have taken 
in the next century as far down as to 1776 or 1783, and proclaimed 
what it saw in tones sufficiently loud to have been heard by 
every colonist, the rejoicing over the accession of William III. 
and Mary would not have been less spontaneous and emphatic. 
Charters which ^existed had been overlapped and confused be- 
yond comprehension. Charters which covered heady and oppos- 
ing colonies had been unceremoniously and ruthlessly cancelled. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 63 

Many colonies had fought the battles of the new American 
institution and civilization against the king's claim of legislative 
interference, to the very verge of despair and surrender. But 
above all the new dynasty was confirmedly Protestant, and in 
,that respect representative of a great majority sentiment at home 
and in the colonies. A source of fresh colonial inspiration, it 
began by rejecting the old order of things. Cancelled charters 
were restored. New governors were commissioned. There 
was jostling here and shaking up there, but in general the liber- 
ties of the people became more securely imbedded in well-under- 
stood forms of law. Prosperity was not retarded, nor faith in 
colonial experiment weakened. The grand result was a rebound 
of strength and confidence, and a new departure in colonial 
spirit and enterprise. Only on one side was the sky dark, and 
there hovered the cl®ud of the rejuvenated English parliament. 
The seeds of the American revolution had ever been in its claim 
of a right to legislate for the colonies. Now the seeds were 
bursting through the ground, for parliament was already legis- 
lating on American commerce ; they would grow and bear 
bloody fruit when the avowal came that the right existed to 
legislate for them in all cases whatsoever. 

STATE OUTLINES. — We have now taken a hasty view of 
English titles to the territory on the Atlantic coast. We have 
followed the divisions of that territory among the colonies, and 
seen how each colony got metes and bounds. Further, we have 
endeavored to give a reason for the existence of each colony, its 
underlying and actuating motive for colonization, the class of 
mind that took part in the work of pioneering, the shape their 
new institutions took almost from the start ; and especially have 
we tried to impress on the reader a knowledge of the active 
political spirit, the love of freedom, the desire for unfettered per- 
sonal sovereignty, the rapid growth of the democratic idea and 
republican institutions, in the new land, all in spite of firm attach- 
ment to monarchy, and because the men, the time, the country, 
made other results impossible. 

One can already see in these beginnings the dawn of the full 
state institution. The spirit which permeated each colony at 



64 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the time of the English revolution of 1688 did not change, ex- 
cept as it grew larger, freer, bolder, till the colonial yoke was 
broken.* And so one can see in the confused and overlapping 
boundaries of these colonies the dim territorial outlines of the 
thirteen original States. Indeed some, as Delaware, Maryland, 
Rhode Island, never afterwards shifted their colonial limits. 
With others, time brought about many geographic changes, and 
settled grave questions of boundary which arose chiefly from 
the fact that their charters and grants were either open at the 
western end, or extended clear through to the Pacific. The 
names of the colonies became the names of the respective 
States both under the articles of confederation and the present 
federal constitution. 

FRENCH EMPIRE.^Though the Dutch, the Swedes, and the 
French had passed from the Atlantic front»of the present United 
States, the latter were still the proud claimants of vast and fertile 
areas North, West, aod South. French adventure in America 
was a strange admixture of commercial and religious zeal. A 
single person was often priest, trader, and colonist. As already 
seen, the French advent was early. Years before the Pilgrims 
anchored at Cape Cod, French missionaries had planted a 
Roman Church in eastern Maine (161 5), and Le Caron, sub- 
sisting by alms from the natives, had, on foot and in canoe, 
pushed his way to the rivers of Lake Huron (1616). The grant 
of New France to Richelieu, Champlain, Razilly and the hundred 
associates, by Louis XIII. (1627), embraced the St. Lawrence 
basin, and that of all rivers running into the sea (hence the 
French claim to Maine and New York), and also all the country 

* " Even if the colonists disclaimed any present passion for independence, they 
were, in the inherent opposition between their principles and the English system, 
as ripe for governing themselves in 1689 as in 1776." — Bancroft^ vol. iii., 109. 

"The independency the colonies thirst after is notorious." — British Lords of 
Trade, in 1701. 

" Commonwealth notions improve daily, and if it be not checked in time the 
rights and privileges of English subjects will be thought too narrow." — Quarry^ 
writing in 1703. 

** The colonists will in time cast off their allegiance and set up a government of 
their own." — Print, of 1705. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 65 

south of Virginia and north of Spanish Florida (perhaps even 
all Florida).* To the West all was open, and to the Jesuit was 
entrusted the work of enlarging the French Dominion. Chani- 
plain held and peopled the line of the St. Lawrence. Brebeuf 
and Daniel pierced the Huron possessions, chanting their Te 
Deums among the pines and bringing the tawny natives to sea 
the light. Quebec and Montreal got to be important towns, and 
the great lake water-ways became familiar. Frenchmen stood 
looking into the land of the Sioux, the great valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, five years before Eliot addressed the Indian in the 
vicinity of Boston. Marquette established the Mission of St. 
Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior, in 1668. It was the oldest 
settlement by Europeans within the present State of Michigan, 
but was not permanent. He projected the discovery of the true 
Mississippi, and designed to plant the banners of France on the 
Pacific or by the side of Spain, on the Gulf of Mexico. With 
Joliet for a companion, they ascend the Fox River, cross to the 
Wisconsin, and in two birch-bark canoes '* happily float down the 
great river " between the wide plains of Illinois and Iowa, to 
Des Moines, then past the great Missouri, the Ohio (then called 
Wabash), and on to the Akansea (Arkansas). There they foupd 
that the Father of Rivers went, not into the ocean east of Florida, 
nor yet into the Gulf of California. Returning, they ascended 
the Illinois, passed up through Chicago to Lake Michigan (Lake 
of the Illinois), and on to the Green Bay Settlement (1673). 

La Salle took up the wondrous tale and added one of its most 
brilliant chapters. His towns mark his trail. Leaving Niagara 
in 1679, he was at the site of Detroit,t Mackinaw, up the St. 

* This New France of the South was the portion Coligny designed to settle with 
Huguenots, and after him Raleigh. It passed naturally from France to England, 
because both countries were anxious to see Raleigh redeem Coligny's failure, and to 
have a Protestant barrier set up against Spain's Catholic Florida. 

f Detroit was permanently settled by De la Motte Cadillac, with one hundred 
Frenchmen, in June, 1 701. It is the oldest permanent settlement in Michigan. 
Michigan, therefore, has a history back of Georgia, and is the oldest of the Western 
States with, perhaps, the exception of Illinois. We say perhaps, because the claim 
is made that Kaskaskia (111.) was the oldest permanent European settlement in the 
valley of the Mississippi. It was founded by Father Gravier, as a Jesuit Mission,^ 
5 



QQ BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Joseph, and over at Kankakee. While Hennepin took in the 
upper Mississippi, perhaps to its source. La Salle studied the 
valleys of the Ohio, Illinois and Tennessee, and in 1682 descended 
the Mississippi to its mouth, realizing Marquette's dream of plant- 
ing the arms of France on the Gulf It was named Louisiana, in 
honor of Louis XIV., and " the terrestrial paradise of America," 
*' the delight of the New World." By 1685 a colony came for Lou- 
isiana, but striking Matagorda Bay, it stopped there, and made 
Texas a part of the French Empire in America. By no treaty 
or document did France ever relinquish her hold on Texas ex- 
cept by the general cessions of Louisiana. 

For years France clung tenaciously to her magnificent Amer- 
ican possessions, the richest, best watered, most boundless, 
owned by any foreign nation. Though an active and indefati- 
gable colonist, her institutions were too far behind the age, too 
much infused with Romanism, too feudal in character, to find 
high or permanent development in the new soil. By 1706 her 
title to the New France of the South, between Virginia (really 
the Carolinas) and Florida, had been wholly merged in that of 
England. In 17 13, Acadia (Nova Scotia and part of Maine) was 
ceded to the English. It " was the most important part" of the 
New France of the North. There was a general withdrawal of 
all French claims to the line of Lake Champlain, and to the set- 
tlements in New York. But by 172 1 they were back at Niagara, 
and stout claimants for, as well as actual occupants of, their St. 
Lawrence possessions. 

Their Louisiana, which had not been affected by the peace of 
Utrecht (17 13), was a wonderful country. Blending with New 
France on the line of the lakes, and cut off nowhere in the north 
except by the possessions of the Hudson Bay Company in the 
extreme northwest, it ran to the gulf at Mobile, swept the gulf 
line to the mouth of the Rio Grande, then up to the Red River 
ridges, then west to the Gulf of California. These were ideal 

but the date is not known exactly. He was in Illinois in 1693, and probably his 
mission was then founded. The fact that Kaskaskia got to be an important mis- 
sionary centre may have helped to give it rank as the oldest permanent settlement 
of the West. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 67 

bounds, but such as France was willing to maintain against both 
England and Spain. Not a fountain flowed west of the sources 
of the Allegheny, Monongahela, Kanawha or Tennessee which 
did not rise in French soil. What a menace to the British 
colonies! What a barrier to westward advancement! Such 
could not long be. By the tripartite treaty of February i6, 
1763, between England, France and Spain, France ceded to Eng- 
land all Canada and all of her Louisiana east of the Mississippi 
and as far south as the Iberville River, thence eastward to the sea. 
This left her only a small strip along the gulf, east of the Mis- 
sissippi, and her immense domains west of that river. But only 
for a moment. On the same day all that was left of Louisiana 
on the continent. was ceded to Spain. France was virtually out 
of the country. It had been a war (the Seven Years' War) for 
new territorial adjustment, both in Europe and America, and 
even in view of the results on this continent alone, well may 
George III. have said : " England never signed such a peace 
before, nor, I believe, any other power in Europe." 

RESULTS OF FRENCH LOSS.— Moreover, it had been 
a war largely fought on American soil. Never before had the 
forests of the New World reverberated the steady tramp of so 
many armed and disciplined men. At Lake George alone there 
assembled an army of 1 5, OCX) from New York, New Jersey and 
New England for the grand assault on Canada. To the south 
the forces of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania fell into line 
to move on Fort Duquesne, and embalm the name of Pitt in the 
border town (Pittsburg), which was to stand as the gateway of 
the west so long as the Allegheny and Monongahela shall flow 
to form the Ohio, or the English tongue shall continue to be the 
language of freedom in the boundless areas traversed by their 
waters. And still farther to the south arose the clangor of camp 
and din of war. France would strike the rear of Virginia and 
the Carolinas by means of the Indians in the fastnesses of Ten- 
nessee, fed and spurred on by food and counsel from the line of 
the Mississippi. The rangers of the Carolinas did their best to 
puncture the eastward moving centre of the mighty Cherokees. 
If they failed, failure was not disastrous, for peace covered dis- 



68 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

comfiture with the bloom of new auspices, and a knowledge of 
the Tennessee and Cumberland valleys had been gained which 
would soon be turned to good account, 

THE AMERICAN OUTLOOK.— \i the English king and 
Protestant Europe could justly fall into raptures over the im- 
mense results of the war in America alone, much more could 
the colonies pride themselves on such results. They had opened 
an empire for themselves beyond the AUeghenies, across the 
prairies, even to the father of waters. The acquisition repre- 
sented their money, valor and blood. Even the plan of striking 
France through her New France and Louisiana was American, 
and due to the sagacity of our own Franklin. Then its result here 
was not a mere riddance of a powerful neighbor, not a mere 
acquisition of limitless, fertile acres. It was proof that the 
colonies could stand together in the face of a common danger, 
evidence that thus compacted they had all the elements of a 
nation, and especially that of strength to defend themselves 
against old world aggression, however skilfully armed and boldly 
pushed. With confidence, therefore, they peered from the peaks 
of the AUeghenies into their western valleys, and with a fervor, 
too, equal to that of Marquette, who, seventy years before, stand- 
ing on the margin of the lakes, cast his prophetic eye to the 
gulf and saw the French lily bloom perennially amid the wild 
flowers of the prairies. Thus contemplating a political mastery 
which ranged from the gulf to the poles, whose forms of institu- 
tion, law and literature were to spread the English tongue more 
widely than any that had ever given expression to human 
thought, the gazers from their mountain tops might well have 
chanted in chorus Bancroft's sublime apostrophe : 

" Go forth, then, language of Milton and Hampden, language 
of my country, take possession of the North American conti- 
nent ! Gladden the waste places with every tone that has been 
rightly struck on the English lyre, with every English word that 
has been spoken well for liberty and for man ! Give an echo to 
the now silent and solitary mountains ; gush out with the foun- 
tains that as yet sing their anthems all day long without response ; 
fill the valleys with the voices of love in its purity, the pledges 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. gg 

of friendship in its faithfulness, and as the morning sun drinks 
the dewdrop from the flowers all the way from the dreary At- 
lantic to the Peaceful ocean, meet him with the joyous hum of the 
early industry of freemen ! Utter boldly and spread widely 
through the world the thoughts of the coming apostles of the 
people's liberty, till the sound that cheers the desert shall thrill 
through the heart of humanity, and the lips of the messenger of 
the people's power, as he stands in beauty upon the mountains, 
shall proclaim the renovating tidings of equal freedom for the 
race ! " 

DRIFT TOWARD INDEPENDENCE.— Th^ plans of 
kings, as well as those of ordinary mortals, go oft awry. The 
wisdom of statesmen however shrewd may become a torment tQ 
nations. When England drove out the Stuarts, and enthroned 
Protestantism in the person of William III. and Mary, she un- 
wittingly strengthened the hands of aristocracy, and organized 
a parliament which in support of its own claims to authority 
could never consistently surrender its control of the American 
colonies. Here was the beginning of independence and revolu- 
tion. Now, by the Treaty of Paris (1763), and the cession of her 
American possessions to England and Spain, France had very 
deftly shifted the whole colonial policy of Europe. Her states- 
men saw that for France to attempt to maintain colonies in New 
France and Louisiana, was to incur constant wars and expend- 
itures, if not to attempt impossibilities. They saw that her 
monarchical forms simply shut off from her American colonies 
even her own philosophy, economy, industrial genius, legal 
skill, and ideas of Protestant freedom, and that without these, or 
even better than these, no American colony could be made to 
live permanently and prosper vigorously. They saw that the 
exhausted polity of the middle ages, the castes of feudal Europe, 
the despotism of infallible churchism, the titles of nobility, 
the leases of land to vassals, and vassalage itself, could not 
be perpetuated, where men who held the plough were the 
bone and sinew of the land, and the only hope of colonial 
success. 

And seeing these things — the power of England and Spain 



70 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

had opened their eyes to them — they were not afraid to make 
confession of them by that surrender which left France without 
a patch of American ground. 

And they saw other things too. They saw that as England 
held the Atlantic front, her future colonial policy would be 
largely commercial. If France should add to this front a do- 
main extending to the Mississippi, to the gulf, and to the pole, 
it would make England's policy both political and commercial. 
It would sharpen the desire of her parliament to rule it from 
home, and would make anxious and determined that authority, 
which nothing but revolution could shake. In a word, it would 
fully commit England to a dominion in America, in accordance 
with her own forms of law. And thus committed, France saw 
that the British situation would be full of dangers. Far ad- 
vanced as England was, it would still be like an attempt to fit a 
dead carcass to a living soul, for English-America had English 
liberties in greater purity, and with far more of the power of the 
people than in England. The colonial inhabitants were self- 
organized bodies of freeholders, natural forestrlevelers, industrious 
soil-winners, bold pioneers, pushing their way farther and farther 
each year, and scorning to take any step backward. They had 
schools, printing presses, books, newspapers, lawyers, doctors, 
ministers of their own choosing. They were self-helpful in 
private affairs, and confident of their ability to care for them- 
selves politically through their local legislatures and municipal 
corporations. They were proud of their dwelling-place, and 
had unbounded faith in its future, under their own management. 
They were strong numerically and physically, and had just 
showed that they were capable of union both for defending the 
flag of England, and driving off the French foe that hovered all 
along their northern and western border. That menace removed, 
the need of reliance on England for protection against France 
no longer felt, left alone to confront only the attempt of England 
to fasten on them her obnoxious laws, what wouldn't they do ? 
France saw what they would do, and knew what they were 
capable of doing. Her surrender of Canada and Louisiana was 
therefore a blow at England. She would turn the force to which 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 71 

she had to succumb into a weapon with which England might 
cut her own colonial throat.* 

BAD FIX OF ENGLAND.— ThQ Treaty of Paris (1763) 
left England with a debt of ;^700,CXX),000, half of which was due 
to The Seven Years' War. She got nothing in Europe to com- 
pensate her. But she got, in America, Canada and the Ohio 
Valley. With her rule of the former we have nothing to do. 
The latter came directly to her Atlantic colonies. As they pro- 
fited, therefore should England profit. Here began that scheme 
of parliamentary control which was designed to make the col- 
onies pay as much of the English war debt as possible, which 
took exclusive jurisdiction of their commerce, which imposed 
burdensome taxes, which denied representation in the British 
parliament, and which culminated in the claim of a right to ex- 
clusive legislative jurisdiction. The colonial charters should all 
fall and one uniform system of government be substituted in 
their stead. To make sure of order and strict enforcement of 
law, a part of the standing army was to find quarters in the col- 
onies and be supported at their expense. The father of the 

* This policy of France, even if a compulsory one, was far-sighted and clung to 
with the greatest tenacity. She had studied it long and well, and its merits were 
recognized by shrewd observers, long before the game was exposed by the surrender 
of her American territory. As early as 1 748 it was reasoned in New York that the 
conquest of Canada by relieving the northern colonies from danger would hasten 
their emancipation. A Swedish traveller, in that year, published the same in 
Europe as his impression. It was an early dream of John Adams that the " re- 
moval of the turbulent Gallics," would be a prelude to the approaching greatness 
of the country. The French minister of foreign affairs warned the English envoy 
that the cession of Canada would lead to the independence of North America. 
When New France surrendered, Choiseul, a Frenchman, exclaimed, " We have 
caught them (the English) at last." Vergennes said, " England will ere long re- 
pent of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe. She 
will call oil them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they helped to bring 
on her, and they will answer by striking off all dependence." Lord Mansfield de- 
clared, " Ever since the Treaty of Paris I always thought the Northern Colonies 
were meditating a state of independency on Great Britain. France backed the 
policy thus begun by aiding the colonies when they did strike for independence. 
And so Napoleon, to further aid the commercial supremacy of the United States 
and cripple that of England, got possession of Spanish Louisiana, only to turn it 
over to this country." 



72 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

scheme was the celebrated Charles Townsend, English First 
Lord of Trade, with the administration of the colonies, who was 
supposed to know more about American affairs than any other 
man. It struck parliament March 9, 1763, in the shape of an 
American tax-bill, and almost immediately the colonies, espe- 
cially those of the north, began to thunder back their resentment. 
The horns of parliament and the colonies were locked in that 
dread encounter which in thirteen years would result in inde- 
pendence. 

FIRST COLONIAL CONGRESS.—Towns^nd's Tax scheme 
was known to be the forerunner of the Stamp Act, Sugar Act, 
and Tea Act, which, when they came, would crown the power 
of parliament to get into the homes and pockets of the American 
colonists. The sentiment of protest therefore became as lively 
as if these acts were already a fact. The stream of resistance 
ran rapidly and angrily, and bore along inevitably toward the 
final plunge into revolution. The eloquent voices of Samuel 
Adams and James Otis were heard in Massachusetts, and a 
Boston town-meeting, protesting loyalty to the crown, pleaded 
for the rights of *'the free-born subjects of Great Britain in 
America." * 

A response was heard from the Rhode Island assembly, where 
Stephen Hopkins was governor (1764). New York, which had 
moved in 1759, now seconded her first motion. North Carolina 
expressed her concurrence with the views of Massachusetts in 
the same year. And soon Connecticut, Pennsylvania, South 
Carolina, and Virginia joined their voices of remonstrance to 
the chorus, which was now heard high above the din of waves 

* Otis argued that the original possessors of power were the whole people ; that 
the colonies enjoyed the right of governing and taxing themselves through their local 
legislatures ; that there was no proscription old enough to supersede the law of 
nature and the grant of God Almighty, who had given all men a right to be free; 
that nothing but life and liberty were hereditable ; that in solving the grand political 
problem the first principle must be the equality and power of the whole. And these 
became the prevailing Whig (anti-Toiy) views of the day and the colonial cause. 
The party names were Whigs, Patriots, Sons of Liberty, these for the colonists 
opposed to taxation ; and Loyalists, Tories and Friends of Government, these for 
the parliament and crown. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 73 

m 

on the whole Atlantic front. Plea followed plea, for justice; 
petition after petition was sent over for parliament to stay its 
hard, heavy hand. Argument after argument was advanced in 
favor of free colonial existence, subject always to that depend- 
ence which had existed from the start. Parliament persisted. 
Townsend closed his mightiest effort in favor of the Stamp Act 
(1765) with "These children of our planting (the colonists), 
nourished by our indulgence until they are grown to a good 
degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, 
will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the 
heavy load of national expense which we lie under ? " 

To which Colonel Barre, with eye darting fire and voice full 
of emotion, replied : " Children planted by your care ? No ! 
your oppression planted them in America. They fled from your 
tyranny into a then uninhabited land where they were exposed 
to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and 
among others to the savage cruelty of the enemy of the country 
— a people the most subtle and terrible of any that ever in- 
habited any part of God's earth ; yet, actuated by principles of 
true English liberty, they met these hardships with pleasure, 
compared with those they suffered in their own country from 
the hands of those that should have been their friends. 

"They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your 
neglect of them. As soon as you began to care for them, that 
care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them in one 
department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of some 
deputy of members of this house, sent to spy out their liberty, to 
misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them — men whose 
behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those Sons 
of Liberty to recoil within them — men promoted to the highest 
seats of justice ; some, to my knowledge, were glad by going 
to foreign countries to escape being brought to a bar of justice 
in their own. 

" They protected by your arms ? They have nobly taken up 
arms in your defence, have exerted their valor amidst their con- 
stant and laborious industry for the defence of a country whose 
frontiers, while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded 



74 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

m 
all its little savings to your enlargement ; and believe me — re^ 
member I this day told you so — that the same spirit which actuated 
that people at first will continue with them still. But prudence 
forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I do not at 
this time speak from motives of party heat. What I deliver are 
the genuine sentiments of my heart ; however superior to me in 
general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this 
House (of Commons) may be, yet I claim to know more of 
America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in 
that country. The people there are as truly loyal, I believe, as 
any subjects the king has ; but a people jealous of their liberties, 
and who will vindicate them, if they should be violated. But 
the subject is too delicate. I will say no more." 

Imagine the effect upon the colonists of a speech like this 
fired right into the midst of a Tory parliament ! Otis suggested 
to the Massachusetts assembly a meeting of committees from all 
the assemblies of the colonies, and a circular was sent out to 
such assemblies, to secure joint action in opposing the English 
policy. Now, England trusted her entire policy of taxation to 
the assumed fact that union among the colonies was impossible. 
As the response to the Massachusetts circular was slow, it began 
to seem as if the English idea were, for the time being, correct, 
but Virginia sprang into the front, and her Patrick Henry, 
against the opposition of such as Bland, Pendleton, Randolph, 
and Wythe, startled her House of Burgesses with his warning 
flash of history : " Tarquin and Caesar had each a Brutus ; 
Charles the First his Cromwell ; and George the Third [cries of 
treason ! treason !] may profit by their example ! " The result 
(1765) was a series of resolutions whose gist was no obedience 
to a law imposing a tax not sanctioned by the general assembly. 
Rhode Island agreed to act in concert with Massachusetts. 
South Carolina, through the influence of Gadsden, selected com- 
missioners. Pennsylvania and Connecticut acted similarly. All 
the thirteen colonies either expressed sympathy or chose dele- 
gates. " Join or die " became a favorite motto. The " Sons 
of Liberty" were organized, who meant opposition of the 
most determined character. " Liberty, property, and no 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 75 

stamps " was the greeting prepared for the Enghsh stamp dis- 
tributors.* 

The congress met in the City Hall, New York, Oct. 7, 1765. 
It consisted of twenty-eight delegates from nine colonies, four, 
though sympathizing with the movement, not choosing repre- 
sentatives. For the first time the patriots of America were 
together on the question of entire colonial union. It published 
a declaration of rights and grievances, expressing loyalty to the 
king, respect for parliament where it had a right to legislate, 
claiming the rights of English-born subjects, affirming the injus- 
tice of taxation without representation, setting forth the adequacy 
of their own local legislatures to attend to all their local con- 
cerns.f An address to the king was prepared ift the same spirit. 
The congress adjourned on the 25th of October. 

There was something now to give coherency to debate and 
resolution in the respective colonies. The Whig and Tory 
parties in each could talk to a point, and they did with a direct- 
ness and vehemence which made the forest assemblies ring. 

* The Stamp Act passed the House of Commons Feb. 27, 1765, and the House 
of Lords March 8, 1765. It introduced direct taxation into the Enghsh policy. 
But for the fact that it was carrying that policy to the uttermost, it should not have 
been as objectionable as the previous navigation acts which virtually limited Ameri- 
can trade to England alone. Americans could get no commodity of use to them, 
from any nation, other than England, without collecting a heavy duty on it for 
England's benefit. And now, under the Stamp Act, stamps were to be paid for and 
affixed to all legal and commercial transactions of moment. 

f The colonies represented were : 

Massachusetts, by James Otis, Oliver Partridge, Timothy Ruggles. 

South Carolina, by Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, John Rutledge. 

Pennsylvania, by John Dickinson, John Morton, George Bryan. 

Rhode Island, by Metcalf Bowler, Henry Ward. 

Connecticut, by Eliphalet Dyer, David Rowland, William S. Johnson. 

Delaware, by Thomas McKean, Caesar Rodney. 

Maryland, by William Murdock, Edward Tilghman, Thomas Ringgold. 

New Jersey, by Robert Ogden, Hendrick Fisher, Joseph Borden. 

New York, by Robert Livingston, John Cruger, Philip Livingstone, William 
Bayard, Leonard Lespinward. 

Virginia, New Hampshire, Georgia and North Carolina did not send delegates. 

Delegates present from only six of the colonies signed the proceedings of the con- 
gress ; New York, Connecticut and South Carolina delegates not being authorized 
to sign. 



76 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The turmoil grew thicker and louder, and the voice of remon- 
strance turned to angry, desperate threat of everlasting resist- 
ance, when the odious Grenville ministry fell and the Rocking- 
ham Cabinet took its place. It had an ear for colonial plaint, 
and Franklin * was there to fill it with his wisely weighed 

* Grenville. " Do you think it right that America should be protected by this 
country and pay no part of the expense ? " 

Franklin. " That is not the case ; the colonies raised, clothed and paid during the 
last war (with France for Canada and Louisiana) 25,cx30 men and spent many mil- 
lions of pounds." 

Grenville. " Were you not reimbursed by parliament ? " 

Franklin. " Only what, in your opinion, we had advanced beyond our propor- 
tion, and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pennsylvania spent ;^5CX),ooo 
and got back ;i^6o,oqp." 

Grenville, ** Do you think the people of America would submit to pay a stamp 
duty, if it were moderated?" 

Franklin. " No ; never. They will never submit to it." 

Grenville. " May not a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution ? " 

Franklin. " Suppose one were sent to America ; they will find nobody in arms, 
what can they do ? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do 
without them. They will not find rebellion ; they may, indeed, make one." 

Grenville. ** How would the Americans receive a future tax, imposed on the same 
principle with that of the Stamp Act ? " 

Franklin. " Just as they do this ; they will not pay it." 

Grenville. " What will be the opinion of the Americans on the resolution of 
parliament asserting the right to tax them? " 
' Franklin. " They will think it unconstitutional and unjust." 

Grenville. " How would they receive an internal regulation connected with the tax ? " 

Franklin. " It would be objected to. When aids to. the crown are wanted they 
are, according to the old established usage, to be asked of the assemblies, who will, 
as they always have done, grant them freely. They think it extremely hard that a 
body in which they have no representation should make a merit of giving what is 
not its own, but theirs." 

Townsend. " Is not the post-office which they have long received a tax as well as 
regulation?" 

Franklin. " No ; the money paid for postage of letters is a remuneration for 
service done." 

Townsend. " If a small tax were levied, would they submit? " 

Franklin. " They will oppose it to the last. The people will pay no internal tax 
imposed by parliament." 

Grenville. " But suppose the internal tax to be laid on the necessaries of life? " 

Franklin. " I do not know a single article imported into the northern colonies 
but what th«y can do without or make themselves. The people will work and spin 
for themselves in their own houses. In three years there may be wool and manu- 
factures enough," — Condensed from Bancroft, vol. v., 430-433. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 77 

words of remonstrance and counsel. The Stamp Act was re- 
pealed March 18, 1766, and a thrill of joy was felt throughout 
colonial America. Liberty Tree in Boston was lighted with 
lanterns : South Carolina voted Pitt, the Whig leader in the 
House of Commons, a statue ; Virginia an obelisk to the king. 
The resolutions and address of the first American Congress, 
which had called a halt in parliament, were thus being rever- 
berated through the colonies. 

AN AMERICAN PARTY,— ?>Mt joy was soon turned to 
sorrow. Pitt left the Commons and went into the House of 
Lords, as Earl of Chatham. This brought the odious Charles 
Townsend to the front again in the Commons, and he was at his 
old scheme of American taxation, this time in a form even more 
objectionable than the Stamp Act. An export tax was to be 
collected on all goods sent to America. Any American assem- 
bly which dared to discuss the measure or appoint delegates to 
a convention or congress whose object was to remonstrate 
against it or to take further steps toward colonial union, was to 
be regarded as seditious, and if need be dispersed. Again the 
colonies were in a ferment. This time the sentiment of union 
and independence was deeper and bolder. Every colony agreed 
to resist to the uttermost the claim of the parliament. The 
result was a partial repeal of the obnoxious act, but the danger 
was not wholly removed. What had been all along a patriotic 
public opinion was now becoming an anti-English or American 
party. The demand became specific for a Union and a Con- 
gress, and it was urged that such a union, firm and perpetual, 
would be a sure foundation for freedom and the great basis 
of every public blessing. All the colonies were enjoined to 
prepare to act as joint members of the Grand American Com- 
monwealth. 

TEA ACT AND A CONGRESS.— Th^ Tea Act of 1773 
was an effort to tax the colonists for the benefit of a mere 
trading company. The mighty surge of passion now plainly 
meant resistance. The demand was for a " Congress of Ameri- 
can States to frame a bill of rights or form an Independent 
State, an American Commonwealth." Thus thundered the Press 



78 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

throughout the colonies. " Union, Union, was the first, the last 
hope for America." The contents of the Boston tea-ships were 
emptied in the harbor. Those for Philadelphia put back with- 
out unloading. Those for Charleston landed their contents to 
have them perish in the cellars. The ministry had chosen the 
least effective way of governing, and the most effective way of 
uniting the colonies. Louder than ever cried the Press ; " No 
time is to be lost ; a Congress or meeting of the American 
States is indispensable, and what the people wills shall be 
effected" (1773). The predicament of parliament was getting 
more desperate every day. It must recede, or coerce the defiant 
colonists. The Boston Port Act (1774) was coercive. Now, 
said Samuel Adams, " Not only common danger, bondage and 
disgrace, but national truth and honor, conspire to make the 
colonists resolve to stand or fall together." On the flag floating 
over the popular assemblies which gathered everywhere was the 
legend " Union and Liberty." Wrote Ezra Stiles, ** If oppres- 
sion proceeds despotism may force an annual congress ; and a 
public spirit of enterprise may originate an American Magna 
Charta and a Bill of Rights, supported by such intrepid and 
persevering importunity as even sovereignty may hereafter 
judge it not wise to withstand. There will be a Runnymede in 
America." * A population of two and a half million colonists 
were in action, moving steadily forward, marching together 
toward an end which Providence had marked out for them. 

Plans for a Congress were well under way. Delegates were 
being selected and instructed, and the talk of Independence, 
Union and force was universal. The calm Washington said in 
the Virginia Convention, " I will raise one thousand men, subsist 
them and equip them at my own expense, and march myself at 
their head for the relief of Boston." f At ten o'clock, Sept. 
5, 1774, delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia did not elect) 
met at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, and began the Sessions of 

* Holetne's Life of Stiles. The time of the writing was July i, 1774. 
f August, 1774, Works John Adams, ii., 360. Lynch of South Carolina said to 
John Adams this was the most eloquent speech that ever was made. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 79 

the First Continental Congress.* They came well instructed 
and full of the work in hand, literally forced together by a 
common grievance. The spectacle was one calculated to im- 
press any beholder. Differing in religion, commercial interests, 
in everything dependent on climate and labor, in usages and 
manners, and swayed by prejudices, even quarreling about 
boundaries, the colonies found themselves in one representative 
body, and the exponent of a power that was to be felt throughout 
the civilized world.f 

CONGRESS AND UNION—'' To petition for redress, to 
restore harmony between Great Britain and America." On this 
basis the Congress started, with Peyton Randolph as president. 
" Each colony should have one vote ; " this after animated de- 
bate. The Congress sat with closed doors. Word came that 
Gage was firing on Boston. This nerved the members. Gallo- 
way's Tory plan for governing the colonies as dependencies of 
Great Britain was rejected, and the vote showed that the Whigs 
had control of the Congress. A resolution of sympathy with, 
and approval of, the conduct of the Massachusetts people was 

* The colonial Congress of 1765 at New York was properly speaking a conven- 
lion. So of that at Albany in 1754. 

f The delegates were, in the order of their choosing by the colonies : 

Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, Samuel Ward. 

Massachusetts, Thomas Gushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat 
Paine. 

Maryland, Matthew Tilghman, Thomas Johnson, Robert Goldsborough, William 
Paca, Samuel Chase. 

Connecticut, Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman, Silas Deane. 

New Hampshire, John Sullivan, Nathaniel Folsom. 

Pennsylvania, Joseph Galloway, Samuel Rhoades, Thomas Mifflin, Charles 
Humphries, John Morton, George Ross, Edward Riddle. 

New Jersey, James Kinsey, William Livingstone, John Dehart, Stephen Crane, 
Richard Smith. 

Delaware, Csesar Rodney, Thomas McKean, George Reed. 

South Carolina, Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher 
Gadsden, Edward Rutledge. 

Virginia, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton. 

North Carolina, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, Richard Caswell. 

New York, James Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Isaac Low, William 
Floyd, Henry Wisner, John Alsop, John Herring, Simon Boerum.. 



80 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

passed and ordered to be sent to Gage. On October 14, 1774, 
the celebrated Bill of Rights was agreed upon. With the excep- 
tion of two articles it was adopted unanimously. It was passed 
with the hope that it would lead to a permanent colonial union, 
self-supporting, self-governing, yet a union unbroken in its con- 
nection with England. The next step was coercive. The Con- 
gress agreed to a great American association (October 20) to 
regulate commercial intercourse with Great Britain. It consisted 
of fourteen articles, and the covenant was in these words : " We 
do for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies, 
whom we represent, firmly agree and associate under the sacred 
ties of virtue, honor and love of country." It looked to non- 
importation, non-exportation and non-consumption of English 
merchandise as a means of compelling the restoration of Amer- 
ican rights. It struck directly at the slave trade. It agreed on 
non-intercourse with any colony that violated the articles of the 
association, holding it as " unworthy the rights of freemen and 
as inimical to the liberties of their country." This compact for 
the preservation of American rights, this " league of the conti- 
nent which first expressed the sovereign will of a free nation in 
America," may be justly regarded as the commencement of the 
American Union.* Its members had no hope that their actions 
would prove acceptable to England. They therefore adjourned, 
privately advising one another to prepare for the worst and to be 
looking after sinews of war and methods of defence. Fixing 
the loth of May, 1775, as the time for a second Congress, it dis- 
solved on October 26, 1774. Its work was ratified in the entire 
twelve colonies with a heartiness and unanimity which showed 

* " The signature of the association by the members of the Congress may be 
considered as the commencement of the American Union." — Hildreth, iii., p. 46. 
• "Among all the original associates in the memorable league of the continent in 
1774, which first expressed the sovereign will of a free nation in America, he 
(Washington) was the only one remaining in the general government." — President 
John Adams ^ December 22, 1799. 

" It was an embodiment of the sentiment of Union and of the will of the people 
on the subject of their commercial relations — the first enactment, substantially, of a 
general law for America. For nearly two years the instrument was termed " The 
Association of the United Colonies." — Frotkingham^ s Rise of the Republic^ p. 374. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 8X 

how deeply the sentiment of union was laid and how all-pervad- 
ing it was. The States of Greece, after centuries of existence, 
never reached the dignity thus attained by the American col- 
onies, to wit, that of a federal council habitually directing and to 
be habitually obeyed. The Whigs saw in the union a sentiment 
crystallized into law and power. The Tories saw in it only an 
ebullition, a rope of sand. It was at least such a thing, said 
Richard Stockton, " as would repel force by force if the British 
government should attempt to execute its acts by force." The 
doings of the Congress were rejected by the king and parlia- 
ment, and force was agreed upon, 

SECOND CONGRESS.— NesLvly the same members as com- 
posed the first Congress assembled in Independence Hall, May lO, 
1775. All its acts looked to a closer colonial union. But up came 
the question of sovereignty. What is its source, what its limit? 
Whence does it come, where does it stop ? The answer would in- 
volve the real principle of government. The provincial assembly 
had been a great training school. It was, tacitly at least, agreed that 
the people were the source of sovereignty, that it was theirs to 
command, to institute organic law, to establish public authority, 
to compel obedience. On this foundation rose the American 
superstructure of permanent, federal government. It was not a 
shock to the architects, but in fitting the principle to practical 
union much difficulty would be experienced, many surrenders 
would have to be made, for, be it known, the colonies had as yet 
few elements of union in themselves. The impelling thing was a 
common danger. The vigor, power, beauty, advantage, pride of 
union were things to be unknown to them, or only guessed af, 
till the panoply of union had been over them for a little time. 

The second great question was defence. Boston was besieged, 
Washington was made commander-in-chief of all armies raised 
or to be raised for the defence of America by unanimous ballot 
on June 15, 1775. Thus began an American army. Franklin 
submitted a plan of confederation and perpetual union under the 
name of " United Colonies of North America."* Lord North 

*This plan was submitted July 21, 1775. It was not acted on at this session, but 
was largely incorporated in the Articlies of Confederation. 
6 



g2 BUILDI.NG AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

had weakened a little and submitted a plan by which he thought 
peace might be brought about. It was submitted to Franklin; 
Jefferson, John Adams and Richard Henry Lee. Their report; 
repudiating it, was adopted by the Congress July 31. The col- 
onies deliberately chose the hazards of war rather than surrender 
their ancient right of self-government. North hoped to deal 
with them as separate units. They resolved to be dealt with only 
as a bundle of units — a nation. Postal communication was estab- 
lished from New Hampshire to Georgia ; two persons were ap- 
pointed to act as joint treasurers of the colonies ; other defensive 
measures followed. Then Congress adjourned (August i) till 
September 5. The nearer war came, the more they shrank from 
it, at least the more cautious they became. Tory sentiment was 
active. Every step taken must be a sure one. The adjourn- 
rAent would give time to hear from the colonists, and especially 
to hear from the last memoria'l to the king. By the 13th of 
September the Congress was in full session again, with Georgia 
represented. From this time on the union was called "The 
Thirteen United Colonies." The king's reply to the memorial 
game back in the shape of a proclamation for suppressing rebel- 
lion and sedition, for, said he, " It would be better to totally 
abandon the colonies than to admit a single shadow of their 
doctrines." The wheels of Providence were now in swiftest 
motion. Lexington and Concord had been fought in April, 
Ticonderoga in May, Bunker Hill in June. South Carolina had 
been warned to resist all attempts to occupy Charleston, and 
Virginia encouraged to defy Lord Dunmore to the uttermost. 
A naval code was created (November 17). Every measure was 
now for offensive war, not defensive. The press took up the 
idea of independence. The thought of union, as a dependency 
of Britain, was gone. "A Grand Republic of the American 
United Colonies, which will, by the blessing of heaven, soon 
work out our salvation and perpetuate the liberties, increase the 
wealth, the power and the glory of this western world ; " this 
was the popular thought. Ten years had worked the idea of 
union into an actual " Continental Association." Would it take 
the idea of independence as long to work into actual independr 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY, 83. 

ence ? The Tories were numerous in the local assemblies, and 
active. They could retard action, if not prevent it. 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.— The Congress 
was proceeding in matters of peace and war as though " The 
United Colonies " were one political power. To the encourage- 
ment of powerful sentiment had been added the confidence of 
victory in armed conflict. New Hampshire, South Carolina and. 
Virginia were recommended by Congress to form local govern- 
ments. This was a step which looked directly to independence. 
On New Year Day, 1776, Washington unfurled the '* Flag of Thir- 
teen Stripes," as the flag of the United Colonies, and arrayed it 
as the symbol of national power against the far-famed banner of 
St. George. From this time till June the Congress was busy 
with questions of war and finance. Its acts were those of a de- 
termined and active revolutionary government. But it was all 
the while being petitioned to cut the chain which bound the col^ 
onies to England, and which was hampering their individual anc| 
concerted action. It therefore recommended to all the colonies 
to form local governments, independent of charters, royal gov- 
ernors, and every English restriction. On June 7, 1776, Rich- 
ard Henry Lee moved for Independence, a Foreign Alliance, and 
a Confederation. John Adams seconded the moti/^n. A com- 
mittee was formed on Independence, composed of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and 
Robert R. Livingston, and they were given till July to report. 
A committee of one from each colony was also formed on Articles 
of Confederation. By the last of June it could be said that op4 
position to Independence, in every colony except New York, 
had ceased ; at least twelve colonies had instructed their delegates 
in Congress to vote for a declaration. And these delegates were 
present in the -Congress on July i, when it took up the resolution. 
on Independence, or rather the report of the Committee on Inde- 
pendence. Four days of debate and amendment brought forth 
the Declaration of Independence as agreed upon by the delegates 
from twelve States (July 4, 1776) — New York delegates not vot- 
ing under her instructions. It was ordered to be authenticated 
by the signatures of John Hancock, President, and Charles 



g4 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Thomson, Secretary, sent out to the State assembHes, and read 
at the head of the army. On July 9, the convention of New 
York resolved to support it. By August 2, it was engrossed 
and ready for the signatures of the members.* The high honor 
of having been its author is due to Jefferson, for the changes 
made in his draft, though numerous, did not alter its tone nor 
general character. The equally high honor of having been its 
strongest champion in the Congress belongs to John Adams. 
Said Jefferson to Daniel Webster, " John Adams was our Colos- 
sus on the floor. He was not graceful, nor elegant, nor remark- 
ably fluent, but he came out occasionally with a power of thought 
and expression that moved us from our seats." f And now that 
" the greatest question has been decided which ever was debated 
in America, and a greater perhaps never was or will be decided 
among men," The United Colonies were decreed a political 
unit of the United States of America. The Declaration was 
proclaimed everywhere among the people as the inestimable 
title-deed of their liberties, and they received it with speech, 
salute, bonfire and general rejoicing. It seemed as if a decree 
promulgated from heaven. 

WHAT IT DID. — Before the Declaration was submitted to a 
vote, a test resolution was laid before the Congress (July 2, 1776) 
as follows : " That these United Colonies are and of right ought 
to be free and~ independent States ; that they are absolved from all 
allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection 
between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be 
totally dissolved," Twelve colonies united in adopting it. This 
assured the passage of the Declaration. It was its preamble, as 
ft were. Observe that in it the word " Colonies " is dropped, 

*" There is much uncertainty about the signing of the Declaration. The engrossed 
copy, signed on August 2, still exists in the office of the Secretary of State. Jeffer- 
son has given the impression that it was generally signed on July 4, but this copy of 
fi; is not known to exist. John Adams wrote on the 9th of July, " As soon as an 
American seal is prepared I conjecture the Declaration will be superscribed by all 
the members." Now, a committee composed of Franklin, John Adams and Jeffer- 
son, was appointed by Congress to prepare a device for the Seal of " The United 
States of America," after the Declaration had passed, probably on the 5th of July. 

t Curtis' Life of Webster^ vol. i., 589. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 35 

never to be taken up again, and the word ** States " * substituted. 
So the Declaration was " The Declaration by the Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress Assembled," and 
the conclusion is : " Therefore we the Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress Assembled," etc. The steps 
toward national birth were the ripening of public sentiment into 
a conviction that a common country was necessary, a delegation 
of power by the colonies for that purpose, a preliminary resolu- 
tion declaring the colonies independent States, a declaration to 
that effect, a ratification of that declaration by the States Thus 
the United Colonies by their joint act passed into " The United 
States." The Declaration has been called the fundamental act 
of Union.f It was the embodiment of the public will as a source 
of authority, when it was the will of the people composing one 
nation. J It established Union as a fundamental law. The old 
law was the law of diversity. It transformed the sentiment of 
nationality into a fact — the new birth was that of a nation, a 
country. As colonies, each had a State of its own, and could 
have had, in one way or another. But only by creating a law 
high over all, only by ordaining and establishing something out 
of that supremacy which resided in all the people, could a union, 
a nation, a country, come. The Declaration announced to all 
nations that §. new political sovereignty had arisen, whose work- 
ings internally were all right, whose external workings sought 
recognition. The colonist was true to his colony, yet h^ 
never hesitated in his allegiance to the king. He ever claimed 
and was ever proud of the rights of a British subject. Now 
he was equally true to his Colony (the State), but the 

* The title of " The United States of America " was formally assumed in the 
Articles of the Confederation, when they came to be adopted. But it was in use 
without formal enactment from the date and adoption of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. On the 9th of September, 1776, it was ordered that sC.l continental com-i 
missions and all other instruments, where the words " United Colonies " had been 
used, the style should be altered to the " United Slates."— yourna/s, ii., 349. 

f Wriiings of Madison, i;i., 482. 

J "In our complex system of polity the public will, as a source of authcri'y, 
may be the will of the people as composing one nation." — Madison's IVn'iijt^'-s, iii., 
479- 



gQ BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

allegiance which was to the king or to Great Britain was trans- 
ferred to the new political unit, the United States. For hundreds 
of years the contention had been for the doctrine of the equality 
of the human race. The Declaration clothed this abstract truth 
with vitalizing power. " We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these 
rights governments are instituted among men deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever 
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is 
the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new 
government, laying its foundation on such principles and organ- 
izing its powers in such form as shall to them seem most likely 
to effect their safety and happiness." This is the American 
theory expressed as Buckle says : " In words the memory of which 
can never die." To maintain it the battles of the revolution were 
fought, and to build on it a worthy superstructure of government 
and law was the work of the fathers of the constitution. 

NATURE OF THE CONGRESS.-^J\\q Continental Con- 
gress, for by this name it got to be known, continued to be the 
National Government in fact, and conducted National affairs till 
the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, Mar^h, 1781, near 
tlie close of the Revolutionary war. There was no change in its 
construction, except that the delegates to it were appointed by 
the State legislatures, as soon as the States had organized State 
governments, which they made haste to do, under the recom- 
mendations of the Congress of 1776.* The powers of the Con- 

* New Jersey adopted a State Constitution July 2, 1776, which went into full 
operation, and the government thus formed lasted for sixty-eight years. 

Delaware adopted a Constitution and form of government (Sept. 20, 1776) which 
lasted for sixteen years. 

Maryland agreed on a Declaration of Rights, Nov. 3, 1776, and on the 8th, upon 
a Coiistituiion, which was not chanj^ed for seventy-five years. 

Pennsylvania framed a Constitution Sept. 28, 1776, which terminated its charter. 
But it was not generally received. Owing to division, the State officers were sup- 
pone-l in their authority by a Committee of Congress, till the amended Constitu- 
tion of 1790. 



-BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. g7 

tinental Congress were nowhere defined or limited. They in- 
cluded power to declare war and make peace, to raise armies 
and equip navies, to form treaties and alliances with foreign 
nations, to contract debts, and do all other acts of a sovereign 
government which were essential to the safety of the United 
States. No Colony, or State, disputed the powers thus assumed 
and exercised. They originated from necessity and were only 
limited by events. Revolutionary though they were, the Con- 
gress in their exercise was supported by the people, and there 
was no other authority to question its acts. It was evident that 
when the dangers of war had passed, when the public liberties and 
independence of all the States had been assured, and when peace 
had dawned, these extraordinary powers of the Congress would 
have to give way to something more certain and better under- 
stood. And right here arose a momentous question. In relax- 
ing the control of Congress, there was danger that the Union 
which existed by reason of the Congress would be dissolved, and 
that the States would drift back into independent communities, 
without a central head, with no common system, with discordant 
local interests, with rivalries and jealousies as to boundaries, com- 
merce, manufactures, and institutions. Hard as had been the 
trial of the Revolution, here was something calculated to stir 
deeper apprehension, and tax more severely the genius of states- 
men. 

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.— As these Articles, 
finally adopted by all the States, March, 1 781, were the begin- 
ning of a government more specific than that of the Congress 
which had carried on the Revolution thus far, yet not so specific 
as that formed by the Constitution of 1787, they can be best ex- 
plained in connection with the latter. As the Congress led to 

North Carolina adopted a Constitution, Oct. 18, 1776, which lasted for sixty-nine 
years. 

Georgia adopted a Constitution Feb. 5, 1 777, lasting eight years. 
. New York adopted a Constitution, April 20, 1777. 

Of the six States which adopted constitutions and forms of government before 
the Declaration of Independence, South Carolina amended hers in 1778, Virginia 
in 1829, Rhode Island and Connecticut did not displace their charters for many 
years, New Hampshire in 1784, Massachusetts in 1780 and 182 1. 



§8 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the Articles of Confederation, so the Articles of Confederation 
led to the Constitution. " States " got to be a definitive, well- 
understood term under the Articles. They were "Articles of 
Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States " (men- 
tioning them all). " The style of this Confederacy shall be The 
United States of America," Art. i. For this reason, also, we 
prefer to treat of the Articles in our next chapter, which con- 
cerns the finer pieces of our fabric — the States. But as the war 
came to an end under the government of the Articles of Con- 
federation, it must be understood that " The United States of 
America," which solemnized the peace of 1783, and accepted of 
the cessions of British territory, was the only power then existing 
which could do these National acts, and bind all the States by its 
authority. 

FURTHER BUILDING.— ThQ war of the American Revo- 
lution resulted in the treaty of Sept. 3, 1783, signed at Paris. By 
it Great Britain relinquished all her " claims to the government, 
proprietary and territorial rights " of the United States (naming 
the thirteen), and acknowledged them " to be free, sovereign and 
independent States." It further ceded all the territory south of 
the Great Lake line, northward (in general) of 31° N. lat, and 
westward to the Mississippi, to the United States. Those pre- 
tentious charters and grants from the Crown, which ran through 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, had now for their western limit 
the " Father of Waters." The territory of the United States lay 
between the Atlantic and Mississippi. The right of Spain (for- 
taierly France) to all beyond, was recognized. 

STATE OWNERSHIP.— But ihrough this territory, before 
it was ceded, fan the titles of the Colonies or States. Their 
claims became a source of trouble long before the date of the 
treaty. Thus Connecticut, whose charter possessions extended 
indefinitely to the west, had colonized in the Wyoming Valley, 
Pa., and was exercising a disputed jurisdiction as early as 1769; 
so also in the Northwest, in what became tlxe " Western Reserve 
of Connecticut." Virginia and New York had clashed, for a 
similar reason, both their boundaries being limitless to the west. 
So New York and Massachusetts had had trouble, and several 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 89 

other States. This whole matter of State ownership and juris- 
diction westward came up in a conspicuous and dangerous form 
when the Articles of Confederation were before the States for 
ratification. Some of the States refused to ratify till the question 
of western lands was disposed of Lord North made much of 
this delay, and pretended to see in this land subject a perpetual 
source of disagreement and a final refusal to establish a Union 
under the Articles. It was not a new subject, for the conserva- 
tive Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, had introduced it into the Con- 
gress and insisted upon its being settled satisfactorily before that 
body passed the Declaration of Independence. As to their own 
boundaries, there was no controversy with Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, New Jersey, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Rhode Isl- 
and, but the remaining seven States were deeply concerned, for 
theirs were the charters running to the Mississippi or the Pacific. 
The former States took the ground that any unoccupied, unde- 
fined territory wrested from a common enemy by the blood and 
treasure of the thirteen United Colonies, ought to be considered 
as common property, subject to be parcelled out by Congress 
into free, convenient, and independent governments. On these 
grounds Maryland refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation 
until an Article was added, securing the Western domain for the 
common benefit. Virginia entered into furious defence of her 
magnificent territory, embracing Kentucky and parts of Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois. There must be concession somewhere or 
no Articles of Confederation. The question must be put out of 
the way before a closer Union could be assured. To be sure, the 
land was not yet conquered from Great Britain, but should it be, 
it were well to have the matter settled. New York was the first 
to move. By resolution of Feb. 19, 1780, she agreed to relin- 
quish her right to unoccupied territory for the common benefit. 
Congress, mindful of the importance of Union, and " to their 
very existence as a free, sovereign, and independent people," 
advised (Sept. 6, 1780) similar surrenders by the other States, 
and on Oct. 10 resolved that out of the lands thus ceded should 
be formed States with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, 
and independence as those possessed by the original States. 



90 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Through the influence of Madison, Virginia agreed to surrender 
her western domain, and so of the others. Thus the leading 
obstacle to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation was 
removed. When the land became theirs by the terms of the 
treaty of 1783, would these States keep their pledges? 

ADyUSTMENT.—n^w York was prompt to keep hers. 
Choosing the meridian of 79° 55' as the limit of westward occu- 
pancy, she formally ceded all her domain west of that to the 
United States for the common benefit, on March i, 1784. This 
was but a small patch of 316 square miles which afterwards 
went to Pennsylvania. Her cession was worthless without the 
consent ot Massachusetts, who claimed clear through. (See 
Massachusetts, below.) But New York still disputed with New 
Hampshire the prize of the territory which afterwards became 
Vermont. This prize, after much contention, and some blood- 
shed, she relinquished in 1790, and took her present limits and 
titles. 

Virginia followed New York March i, 1784. Her cession 
was of that part of the great Territory, afterwards known as the 
" Territory of the Northwest," * lying between 41° north latitude 
and the southern border of Kentucky. That part of her cession 
north of the Ohio, according to its terms, entered into and 
formed a part of the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The 
part south of the Ohio afterwards became Kentucky. 

Massachusetts curtailed her indefinite claims April 19, 1785, by 
relinquishing her right to the small bit of ground just west of 
the New York boundary, which was then, Jan. 3, 1792, given 
to Pennsylvania. She held her Maine possessions till 1820, 

* The " Territory of the Northwest " was organized under the ordinance of Con- 
^tinental Congress of July 13, 1787, which ordinance is regarded as a model, both as 
to its text and display of the principles of civil, religious and political liberty. It is 
popularly ascribed to Jefferson, but was written by Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Mass. 
Article VI. of this ordinance reads : " There shall be neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude in said Territory otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the 
parly shall have been duly convicted." This clause afterwards became noteworthy 
as showing wherein the Congress of the Confederation had exercised the right to ex- 
clude slavery from the Territories. Its language was copied in the Missouri Com- 
promise affair, 1819 20; in the Wilmot Proviso, 1846, and in the XIII. amendment 
to the constitution, 1865. 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 91 

when they were surrendered in order that Maine might become 
a State in the Union. In 1855 the district known as the " Bos- 
ton Corner" was ceded to New York, and in 1861, by ex- 
changes with Rhode Island, both these States got their present 
limits. 

Connecticut under her ostentatious claims to western do- 
mains had sent out strong colonies into Pennsylvania and the 
northwest. Her claim to Pennsylvania soil was a matter for 
judicial determination. In order to quiet titles in the northwest, 
she, Sept. 14, 1786, relinquished her claim to everything west of 
a line drawn due north and south, 120 miles west of the Penn- 
sylvania line. This left her a ** reserve " 120 miles wide. On 
May 30, 1800, she yielded all territory and jurisdiction west of 
her present limits, reserving whatever right of soil she may have 
had as a protection to those who held title from her. 

South Carolina ceded her claim to a strip of territory only 
twelve miles wide, lying south of 35° north latitude, and extend- 
ing along the southern borders of North Carolina and Tennessee, 
to the Mississippi, on Aug. 9, 1787. 

North Carolina adjusted her western border, Feb. 25, 1790, 
by ceding the territory which afterwards became Tennessee. 

Georgia made a most important cession of the territory west 
of her present western boundary, June 16, 1802. 

These cessions of their lands, and surrenders of their claims to 
lands, by the original States, fulfilled their pledges to thus dis- 
pose of them for the common benefit, made before the Articles 
of Confederation were adopted, and in order that they might be 
adopted. They quieted the title of the United States to all the 
territory, outside of the limits of the States, ceded by Great 
Britain in 1783. They put this part of the fruits of the war at 
the disposal of all the people. The United States could now 
begin to enjoy the full fruitions of that treaty. The States would 
cease their clamors and jealousies about old charter boundaries, 
and the general government could go on with its great work of 
State building and the acquisition of new territory. The old 
States had done nobly in making these surrenders. They proved 
by them the depth of their interest in the new experiment of 



92 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

self-constituted federal government, and the extent of their de- 
sire not to let selfish love of acres and limitless boundaries stand 
in the way of permanent national union, peace and progress. 
As States they could not contribute further to the geographic 
framework of the nation, nor to matters of title. The govern- 
ment as a whole must now buy or conquer its own rough stories 
and timbers. 

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.^And it went about the 
work right speedily. The English cession of 1783 left intact 
the Spanish claim to Florida and Louisiana, east of the Missis- 
sippi, and beyond that river the United States owned nothing, 
the boundary being the middle of the stream. We have seen 
how France ceded her Louisiana to Spain m 1763, and what it 
meant. Foreign possession of the mouth of the Mississippi was 
not tolerable. Nor was similar possession of its western shores, 
and to its middle, any more tolerable. Both were an annoyance 
and a menace, as had been abundantly proved time and again, 
and as would continue to be proved, if not removed. In 1795 a 
treaty had been made with Spain which gave the United States 
commercial rights at New Orleans. In 1802 Spain gave notice 
that these rights had ceased. Alarm spread all along the line 
of the river. It was looked upon as a Spanish trick, instigated 
by France. But what was the consternation when it was discov- 
ered that two years before Spain had parted with Louisiana to 
France, though the distinctive act of cession had not yet taken 
place. The treaty of cession had been a secret one, carried out 
in the interest of Napoleon. Though we doubt not it was a 
shrewd move on the part of France to further cripple England 
by first' getting back possession of this immense domain and 
,then turning an honest penny by selling to the United States, 
thus helping the creation of a great commercial rival to England 
on this continent, in accordance with the French theory of 1763, 
yet Jefferson, then President, chose to look upon it as an attempt 
of France to rival England directly. He therefore sent Monroe 
to the aid of Livingston, minister to France, first to protest that 
if France took possession the United States would be forced into 
an alliance with England against her, and, second, to sound 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 93 

France as to the probability of a purchase. Probably the latter 
was what France wanted. She was needy, was about to war 
with England, and was in no position to be hampered with such 
a possession. Driving the best bargain she could, going up in 
her price from ;^ 1 3,000,000 to $15,000,000, a sale was consum- 
mated by treaty of April 30, 1803, ratified by the Senate Oct. 20, 
1803, and by a resolution of the House to carry it into effect* 

Of the ;^ 1 5 ,000,000, to be paid, ;^3, 7 5 0,000 were withheld to be 
disbursed, under the French Spoliation bill, to pay the losses 
Americans had suffered in their commerce at the hands of the 
French. By this magnificent purchase the United States got a 
gulf frontage east of the Mississippi extending from that river to 
Florida, though all this Spain disputed. Leaping the Missis- 
sippi the country shot clear to the Pacific, for the ceded territory 
embraced Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, 
Oregon, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, part of Kansas, the 
Territories of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, the Indian 
country, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming,t an added 
empire of 900,000 J square miles, or one larger than the entire 
area of the country before. 

SPAIN CEDES FLORIDA.— ThQ next cession of foreign 
soil was by Spain, Feb. 22, 1819. This was a transaction almost 
wholly in the interest of Spain, judged by the extent of territory 
which passed. She claimed that her Florida ran to the Missis- 
sippi, also that she had never recognized France's claim to that 
part of Louisiana west of the Sabine River (Texas). The United 

* Owing to the opposition of the Federalists to this purchase, which they regarded • 
unwarranted by the constitution and as tending to increase the preponderance of the 
South in national legislation, Jefferson called the Eighth Congress together earlier 
than usual for the express purpose of having it ratify the treaty of purchase and 
vindicate his procedure. He admitted that the constitution gave no power to pur- = 
chase foreign territory and make it a part of the Union, but claimed that when once 
the deed was done, it could be validated by the nation's ratification. 

f For the French boundaries of their Louisiana, much wider than those here 
enumerated, see page 66. And this is important, for Texas was clearly in the 
Louisiana of France, as the United States acknowledged when Spain came to cede 
Florida. 

X Not counting what was afterwards confirmed by the Oregon treaty of 1846, 
amounting to 300,000 square miles. 



94 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

States claimed that Louisiana ran eastward to the present 
boundary of Florida. To quiet everything, Spain ceded her 
Florida clear to the Mississippi, for the sum of ;^5, 000,000, and 
the additional consideration that the United States should 
abandon all claim to that part of French Louisiana which lay 
west of the Sabine. Thus a territory equal to six Floridas, 
which had already been bought and paid for by the United 
States, was surrendered to Spain, and was soon to become a part 
of the Republic of Mexico. In twenty-six (1845) years it 
drifted back to the United States again, as we shall see when 
the cession of Texas is reached. 

THE OREGON TREATY.— Aw^cy up in the Northwest the 
boundary of Louisiana could not be made to fit to that claimed 
by Great Britain for her possessions. The United States claimed 
54° 40' N. lat. as the boundary. England claimed that it was 
the Columbia River. From 1827, the disputed territory had 
been held by both claimants. The Democratic party made it an 
issue in their platform of 1844 to claim to 54° 40', with or without 
war with England. The watchword all along the line was " 54° 
40' or fight." In the Congress of 1845-46, Calhoun, to the 
great embarrassment of President Polk and the Democratic 
party, proposed 49° as a compromise line. After much party 
backing and filling, and long negotiation, a treaty was agreed 
upon, June 15, 1846, which was ratified by the Senate, the 
Whigs coming to the rescue of the President, saving him from 
his party friends and the country from war. The treaty fixed 
49° N. lat. as the boundary, as originally proposed by Calhoun. 
This necessitated an immense cession of land — all between the 
southern limit claimed by Great Britain and the 49° — to the 
United States. It amounted to 308,052 square miles, and the 
cession was called "The Cession by the Oregon Treaty of 1846." 
Thus were cured the defects of the treaty of purchase of 1803, 
with France, and the Ashburton treaty of 1842, with Great 
Britain. ^ 

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS^—Tex3iS had been a State of 

* As Texas came directly into the Union as a Stale, see further about her history 
in connection with the S/a/e of Texas, next article. ' 



BUILDING GEOGRAPHICALLY. 95 

the Republic of Mexico, but had seceded, had set up for herself 
an independent republic, and was, in 1845, ^t war with Mexico, 
though an armistice was then pending, with a view to peace. It 
was deemed an opportune moment to secure her vast domain 
for the United States. Under the lead of Calhoun, a treaty of 
annexation, pure and simple, was proposed, but rejected. This 
was followed by another proposing her admission into the 
Union, which was coupled with one for negotiation and treaty. 
In this shape it passed, and Texas was admitted as a State Dec. 
29, 1845. Her debt, amounting to ;^7, 500,000, was assumed by 
the United States. Besides incorporating her wonderful territory 
of 318,000 square miles, with our own, she relinquished all her 
claims, by virtue of her having been a member of the Mexican 
Republic, to the lands west of the 27th meridian, and now in the 
territory embraced by Colorado and New Mexico. Her status 
being that of war with Mexico, it was assumed by the United 
States. Thus the country was plunged into the Mexican war, 
which made the Texas experiment a very costly one in the end. 
By that war, however, other vast and valuable areas were ac- 
quired. 

MEXICAN CESSION.—ThQ Mexican war (1846-48) which 
had been going on for two years was brought to a close by the 
treaty of Feb. 2, 1848. By its terms Mexico ceded all the 
territory now covered by the States of California and Nevada, 
also her claims to Texas, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and 
parts of Wyoming, Colorado and the Indian country, holding, 
however, to a part of New Mexico and Arizona south of the 
Gila River. The lower Rio Grande from its mouth to El Paso 
was taken for the boundary of Texas. The United States paid 
Mexico, for this land, ;^ 1 5 ,000,000, in five annual instalments, 
and in addition assumed the claims of American citizens against 
Mexico, to an amount not exceeding ;^3, 250,000. 

GADSDEN PURCHASE.— Th^ lands, above mentioned, as 
reserved by Mexico south of the Gila river, were purchased by 
the United States, Dec. 30, 1853, for ;^ 10,000,000. The transac- 
tion became known as the " Gadsden Purchase." This purchase 
gave the United States a better southern boundary, and compact 



96 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

areas between the two oceans. " Westward the course of em- 
pire " had taken its way, and the Pacific front took a range of 
1,343 miles, as against the Atlantic's 2,163 miles. 

ALASKA CESS/ON. — The last accession of national terri- 
tory was May 28, 1867, when Russia ceded all her territory in 
North America to the United States for the sum of ;$7, 200,000. 
This gave us Alaska, which is not coterminous territory, being 
cut off by intervening British possessions. The policy of this 
purchase was, at first, regarded as unwise. But time has changed 
sentiment respecting it. If the question were up as to the pro- 
priety of its sale at the price paid for it there would be a nega- 
tive response. It is, to say the least, a good pivotal and strategic 
point, barren as it may be of other importance. 

TERRITORIAL S [/MMAR V.-^Uow look our national areas 
when thrown into figures ? Using estimates and round numbers 
the showing is as follows: 

Sq. miles, Sq. miles. 

Estimated Area 1783 820,680 Gadsden Purchase.. . 1853 30,000 

Louisiana Purchase 1803 899,579 Alaska Purchase .... 1867 500,000 

Florida Purchase 1819 66,900 Grand Total 3,466,166 

Oregon Treaty Lands . . 1846 308,052 Egt'd Lake & Water Surface 396,1 16 

Texas Annexation 1846 318,000 ^ -i ~oZ o~ 

Mexican Cession 1848 522,955 Sg. mde s 3^862,282 

Acres 2,471,860,480 

To all these acres the United States has undisputed title. 
They are the acquisition of one hundred years of national sover- 
eignty, and are exceeded by the figures of only three other em- 
pires in the world — Great Britain with all her detached de- 
pendencies, the Chinese Empire and Russian Empire. And 
now, having seen whence our national titles sprang, having 
built our country territorially, and having studied the beginnings 
of our institutions amid colonial life, let us turn to that part of 
the fabric in which States comprise the artistic subdivisions and 
comprise the sublime whole. 



I 



J 




BUILDING POLITICALLY; 

OR, 

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE STATES. 

ROM COLONY TO STATE.— Having taken a view 
of the country in the rough, seen its titles and begin- 
nings as they arose like dry land out of a multitude of 
waters, caught something of that free, republican spirit 
which ripened in the colonies and urged perpetually 
toward independence and union, and witnessed our majestic 
territorial strides from Atlantic to Pacific, buying where the 
market was open, conquering where it was closed, let us turn to 
finer parts of the national fabric. 

The resolution of the Continental Congress, passed May lo, 
1776, suppressing royal authority in the colonies, made neces- 
sary the formation of local governments, capable of answering 
the ends of political society and of continuing without interrup- 
tion the protection of law over property, life and public order. 
These newly formed local governments, or these reformed col- 
onial governments, for fortunately the political situation in many 
of the colonies required but little departure from their previous 
local institutions, were the true beginnings of the States. They 
were spoken of as " States " in the Declaration of Independence, 
and they made a near approach to States as they now are, under 
the Articles of Confederation. But, though States of a Union, 
they were not our States of the Union. How were they trans- 
formed ? 

THE FIRST STEP. — As has been seen, the Continental 

Congress was the only government during the Revolution and 

up until the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 178 1. 

It was simply a revolutionary government, with power for any- 

7 (97) 



98 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

thing or nothing, just as its acts were sanctioned or condemned 
by the popular voice. It was the result of a Union on account 
of public danger and not of a Union as the result of a charter 
or constitution. When the danger had passed, the function of 
the Congress would cease, and the Union would melt into its 
original components. There was more danger in this than in 
the presence of an armed foe. Statesmen were busy at work to 
prevent such a catastrophe. Before the Declaration Franklin 
had proposed a scheme of Confederation. The Continental Con- 
gress of 1775 (the Congress of the Declaration as it was called) 
had raised a committee in whose hands measures for a more 
permanent Union were placed. The newspapers teemed with 
plans for a permanent republican government. On the 12th of 
July, 1776, the committee of Congress reported Articles, drawn by 
John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania. They did not meet the 
approval of the Congress, but rather plunged it into debate over 
questions of commerce, public lands, taxation, and the relative 
positions of the larger and smaller States. For sixteen months 
the Articles were delayed. At last, November 15, 1777, an 
agreement was had, and a draft of Articles, as agreed upon by 
the Congress, was sent out to the States for ratification, together 
with a letter commending them as a plan " for securing the free- 
dom, sovereignty and independence of the United States," as the 
best that could be adapted to the circumstances of all, as " essen- 
tial to their very existence as a free people, " and without which 
they might" soon be constrained to bid adieu to independence, 
liberty and safety. " 

Nine of the States promptly ordered their delegates in Con- 
gress to ratify the Articles, which was done July, 1778. But 
they were not to be binding unless ratified by all the States. 
Political languor seemed to have taken the place of that blaze 
of freedom which had hitherto burned so brightly in the inchoate 
States. The burdens of -vv^r pressed heavily. Congress issued 
an appeal to the remaining States " to conclude the glorious 
compact." Henry Laurens, the President of Congress, wrote 
despairingly to Washington : " Where is virtue, where is patriot- 
ism noWj when almost every man has turned his attention to 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 99 

gain and pleasure, practising every artifice of Change-alley or 
Jonathan's ? " * 

The capture of Burgoyne, October i6, 1777, and word of a 
French alliance, February 6, 1778, served to stir enthusiasm 
again and revive the hope of Union under fully ratified Articles. 
A few other States gave their assent, but Maryland held out. 
She would not consent till the great question of public domain 
was disposed of, nor did she consent till the States to whom the 
valley of the Mississippi would have fallen by virtue of their 
charter limits patriotically agreed to surrender all lands which 
England might cede by any treaty of peace to the United States. 
All conquered, or to be conquered, lands thus made common 
property, Maryland ratified February 2, 1781, and signed March 
I, 1 78 1. The revolutionary government by a Congress was at an 
end. The step taken made union firmer under the forms of the 
first American constitution. 

WHAT THE ARTICLES Z>/Z).t--They renewed the 

•^ Jonathan's was a London coffee-house, the resort of speculators. Precisely why 
the English applied the term to Americans is not clear. But, as thus applied, it 
appears in a printed ballad on the expedition to Rhode Island, 1778, "Jonathan 
felt bold, sir." The British account of the burning of Fairfield, 1779, uses the 
word thus : " The troops faced about and drove Jonathan." In the form of " Brother 
Jonathan," the term hardly appeared till after peace had softened the asperities of war. 

f The great seal of the American Union was adopted June 20, 1782. It was 
the American Eagle, holding in his right talon an olive branch, in his left a bundle 
of thirteen arrows, in his beak a scroll inscribed with "^ Pluribus Unum " (one 
composed of many), and over his head an azure field with thirteen stars. On the 
reverse was an unfinished pyramid with an eye, having over it ^^Annuit Coeptis^^ (a 
beginning permitted, or approved), at the base MDCCLXXVL, and underneath 
" Novus Ordo Sedorum " (a new order of ages). 

Previously, June 14, 1777, Congress voted " That the flag of the United States be 
thirteen stripes, alternately red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white, 
in a blue field, representing a new constellation. This flag continued till Ver- 
mont (1791) and Kentucky (1792) were admitted, when it was changed (Act of 
January 13, 1 794) to fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. It became apparent that the 
increase of stripes, as new States were admitted, would throw the flag out of pro- 
portion. Therefore the following was passed, April 4, 1818: " That from and after 
the 4th of July next the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, 
alternate red and white; that the Union be twenty stars (the then number of 
States), white, in a blue field; that, on the admission of every new State, one 
star be added to the union of the flag, such addition to be made on the 4th of July 
next succeeding such admission." 



100 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

pledge of the States to Union, or rather made public and official 
record of such pledge. They made inter-state citizenship free. 
They created a Congress and defined its powers, but endowed it 
with no executive function. They gave the States something to 
conform to. They created a tribunal to settle disputes between 
the States. But the best thing they did was to confer a great 
educational service through their weaknesses and defects. 

WHAT THEY DID NOT DO.— In saying that the Ar- 
ticles soon proved themselves full of glaring defects, it must not 
be forgotten that the States, while colonies, had been subject to 
a foreign rule whose restrictions had been severely felt and whose 
assumptions had been a source of constant jealousy and alarm. 
They had, naturally, nourished a spirit of resistance to all author- 
ity outside of themselves, and, having no experience of the con- 
venience or necessity of a general government to care for their 
common interests, they deemed the least possible delegation of 
their power quite sufficient for national purposes. Therefore the 
Articles created a confederation which had few powers for peace. 
It could make treaties, but could not execute them; appoint am- 
bassadors, but not pay their expenses ; borrow money, but not 
pay a dollar ; make coin, but not import an ounce of bullion ; 
declare war and order the number of troops, but not raise a single 
soldier; in short, declare anything and do nothing. It was 
truly a feeble thread on which to string thirteen States and hold 
them in bonds of union. Its unfitness as a frame of government 
for a free, enterprising and industrious people, so manifest at the 
start, grew more and more so, till it finally lost all vigor and re- 
spect and tottered to its fall. Should it be left to silent dissolu- 
tion, or should an attempt be made to form something more 
commanding and vigorous before the great interests of the Union 
were crushed and buried beneath its ruins ? 

DAWN OF A CONSTITUTION— H2imi\ton saw the de- 
fects of the Articles of Confederation and (1780) proposed a con- 
vention to reform them even before they were ratified by the 
States. Similar propositions were made by Pelatiah Webster in 
1 78 1, the New York Legislature in 1782, Hamilton in Con- 
gress 1783, Richard Henry Lee in 1784, Governor Bowdoin in 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 101 

1785. But it required more than cold propositions and dignified 
discussion to overcome the indifference of the States. It re- 
quired the flat refusal of New Jersey to comply with an act of 
Congress. It required the open offense of Massachusetts in 
raising troops to crush Shay's rebellion. It required the quarrel 
between Virginia and Maryland as to the right to navigate the 
waters of the Chesapeake and Potomac. This last brought a 
convention to Annapolis, September 11, 1786. Only five States 
were represented. They did nothing respecting the point in dis- 
pute ; they could do nothing. But Hamilton was there, and 
Madison, and Dickinson, and they saw but one way out of such 
difficulties — that was by creating a stronger central government 
and endowing it with ample powers on all such delicate subjects. 
Their report suggested a call of delegates from all the States to 
meet in Philadelphia, May (second Monday), 1787. 

A CONSTITUTION.— Congress, adopted this report, Febru- 
ary 21, 1787, and ordered a Convention. All the States sent 
delegates except Rhode Island. On May 14, they met in Inde- 
pendence Hall, but a majority of the States not being represented 
they adjourned from day to day till the 25th. Then organiz- 
ing by the election of George Washington as President, they 
proceeded to business. It was a memorable body. The veterans 
of the revolution were there, and the wise statesmen of the times 
which gave birth to the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and the Articles of the Confederation. They were 
there to remedy the defects of the past and propose a new de- 
parture for the future. Franklin was there, at eighty-one. John- 
son of Connecticut, Rutledge of South Carolina, and Dickinson, 
had been members of the Stamp Act Congress. Seven of them 
had been in the Congress of 1774. Eight of them had signed the 
Declaration of Independence. Their deliberations ran through 
four months, and they were carried on amid great diversity of 
opinion.* The antagonisms of American society, errors of 

*The sessions were held with closed doors, and the utmost secrecy was enjoined, 
no member being even allowed to copy from the Convention's Journal, which was 
entrusted to Washington, and by him deposited in the State Department. It was 
printed by direction of Congress in 1818. 



102 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Opinion and deep-rooted prejudices, local interests, State jealousies 
and ambitions, and especially the matter of slavery, these all 
trooped into the convention to make it a scene of furious storms, 
and to threaten its disruption time and again. Even the calm 
and hopeful Washington said he almost despaired of seeing a 
favorable issue to the proceedings, and more than once repented 
of having had any agency in the business. But an era of com- 
promise was reached, and the v^ork was completed on September 
17, 1787. All the members present signed The Constitution of 
the United States of America, except Edmund Randolph and 
George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. 
It was then sent to the States to be ratified by Conventions, 
specially called for the purpose, and was to become operative 
when so ratified by nine of the States. All the States called 
Conventions and ratified, except Rhode Island and North 
Carolina.* 

NEW GOVERNMENT.— On July 2, 1788, the President of 
Congress laid before that body the ratification of the requisite 
nine States. By September 13, ** a plan for putting the Con- 
stitution in operation " was completed. The first Wednesday in 
January was fixed for the appointment of electors; the first 
Wednesday in February for their meeting to vote for a President ; 
and the first Wednesday in March as the time, and New York 
as the place, for commencing proceedings under the new Con- 
stitution. The necessary elections of Senators and Representa- 
tives having been held, the first Congress assembled at New 
York, Wednesday, March 4, 1789, to adjourn for want of a 
quorum till April 6, when the votes of the electors being counted 
it was found that George Washington had been unanimously 
elected President and John Adams Vice-President. On April 

* North Carolina afterwards in a new conventioij held November, 1789, adopted 
the Constitution, and Rhode Island by a convention held May, 1790. The debates 
in the respective State Conventions over the question of ratifying took the widest 
range and showed great diversity of sentiment. In only three States was the Con- 
stitution adopted unanimously, New Jersey, Delaware and Georgia. In Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina it had large majorities. In Massa- 
chusetts, New York and Virginia it had a bare majority, and in the remaining States 
a small majority. 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 103 

30, Washington was sworn into office, and our present form of 
government was a fact.* 

SENTIMENT. — In his inaugural Washington said, " In the 
important revolution just accomplished in the system of their 
united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary con- 
sent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has 
resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most 
governments have been established, without some return of pious 
gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future bless- 
ings which the past seems to presage." 

" The strongest government on earth " and " the only one 
where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the stand- 
ard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as 
his own personal concern." — Jefferson's Inaugural. 

" America has emerged from her struggle into tranquillity and 
freedom, into affluence and credit ; and the authors of her Con- 
stitution have constructed a great permanent experimental an- 
swer to the sophisms and declarations of the detractors of 
liberty." — Sir James Mackintosh. 

" To those great men who framed the Constitution and secured 
the adoption of it, we owe a debt of gratitude which can scarcely 
be repaid. It was not then, as it is now, looked upon, from 
the blessings which, under the guidance of Divine Providence, it 
has bestowed, with general favor and affection. On the contrary, 
many of those pure and disinterested patriots, who stood forth 
the firm advocates of its principles, did so at the expense of 
existing popularity. They felt that they had a higher duty to 
perform than to flatter the prejudices of the people, or subserve 
selfish, sectional or local interests. Many of them went to their 
graves without the soothing consolation that their services and 
sacrifices were appreciated. Scorning every attempt to rise to 
power and influence by the common arts of the demagogue, 
they were content to trust their characters and conduct to the 
deliberate judgment of posterity." — Story on the Constitution. 

* Chancellor Livingston administered the oath of office. The President delivered 
his inaugural address in the presence of both Houses of Congress, a custom which 
was adhered to till Jeiferson changed it. 



104 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

" It animated freemen all over the world to resist oppression. 
It gave an example of a great people not only emancipating 
themselves, but governing themselves without even a monarch 
to control or an aristocracy to restrain them ; and it demonstrated 
for the first time in the history of the world, contrary to all the 
predictions of statesmen and the theories of speculative inquirers, 
that a great nation, when duly prepared for the task, is capable 
of self-government ; or in other words, that a purely republican 
form of government can be formed and maintained in a country 
of vast extent, peopled by millions of inhabitants." — Brougham's 
Political Philosophy. 

" The republican government was a success because in its 
operation it met the needs of the two fundamental conditions of 
American political life, diversity and union, as correlative forces 
— on the one hand, the development of the Commonwealth or 
State ; on the other, of the union or nation." — Frothinghams 
Rise of the Republic. 

" It actually secured, for what is really a long period of time, 
a greater amount of combined peace and freedom than was ever 
before enjoyed by so large a portion of the earth's surface. 
There have been, and still are, vaster despotic empires ; but never 
before has so large an inhabited territory remained for more than 
seventy years in the enjoyment of internal freedom and of ex- 
emption from the scourge of internal war." — Freeman's Hist, of 
Federal Gov. 

Even as Freeman wrote (1861), the Republic was passing 
through its severest ordeal — that of civil war ; and the verdict 
rendered in this supreme court of armed force was in favor of the 
Constitution. All the above are wonderfully pleasing and in- 
spiring pictures of potency and adaptation, yet they were not 
undreamt of among the early patriot seers. 

" The celestial light of the gospel was directed here by the 
finger of God ; it will doubtless finally drive the long, long night 
of heathenish darkness from America. So arts and sciences will 
change the face of nature in their tour from hence over the Appa- 
lachian chain to the Western ocean ; and as they march through 
the vast desert, the residence of wild beasts will be broken up 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 105 

and their obscure howl cease forever. Instead of which, the 
stones and trees will dance together at the music of Orpheus, 
the rocks will disclose their hidden gems, and the inestimable 
treasures of gold and silver be broken up. Huge mountains of 
iron-ore are already discovered, and vast stores are reserved for 
future generations. This metal, more useful than gold and 
silver, will employ millions of hands, not only to form the mar- 
tial sword and peaceful share, alternately, but an infinity of 
utensils improved in the exercise of art and handicraft amongst 
men. Nature through all her works has stamped authority on 
this law, namely, that all fit matter shall be improved to its best 
purposes. Shall not, then, those vast quarries that teem with 
mechanic stone, those for structure be piled into great cities, and 
those for sculpture to perpetuate the honor of renowned heroes, 
even those who shall now save their country ? O ye unborn 
inhabitants of America ! should this page escape the destined 
conflagration at the year's end, and these alphabetical letters 
remain legible, when your eyes behold the sun after he has 
rolled the season round for two or three centuries more, you will 
know that in Anno Domini 1758, we dreamed of your times." * 
THE OLD THIRTEEN STATES.— ThesQ States had first 
colonial existence, then independent revolutionary existence 
under the Congress, then united existence under the pledge of 
the Confederation, and now they come to have cemented exist- 
ence under the Constitution and constitutional form of govern- 
ment. Their membership in the Republic dates from their rati- 
fication of the Constitution by conventions chosen for the pur- 
pose. These dates are: Delaware, Dec. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, 
Dec. 12, 1787; New Jersey, Dec. 18, 1787; Georgia, Jan. 2, 1788; 
Connecticut, Jan. 9, 1788; Massachusetts, Feb. 6, 1788; Mary- 
land, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New 
Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 25, 1788; New York, 
July 26, 1788; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1789; Rhode Island, 
May 29, 1790. 

* Written by Nathaniel Ames, father of Fisher Ames, in Ames' Almanac for 1758, 
and one of the most remarkable prophecies relating to America. 



106 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

THE_ EARLIEST TERRITORIES.— ^hWe yet the country 
,was limping along under the Confederation, it entered upon the 
work of disposing of its lands acquired by the treaty of 1783. 
Its first action was by the celebrated ordinance of July 13, 1787, 
already alluded to, which created " The Territory Northwest of 
the Ohio river " out of the Virginia cession up to 41°, and out 
of all north of that parallel, ceded by Great Britain. Out of this 
territory, according to the provisions of the ordinance, not less 
than three States were to be formed fronting on the Ohio river. 
Out of all that was left, lying north of an east and west line 
drawn through the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, one 
or two other States were to be formed. The provisions of this 
ordinance were afterwards carried out in the formation of Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, and so, of the remaining portion of the ter- 
ritory, were formed Michigan, Wisconsin, and that part of Min- 
nesota east of the Mississippi. 

The next disposition of public domain was made by the 
present government on May 26, 1790. It then erected the " Ter- 
ritory south of the Ohio river," out of cessions by Virginia and 
North Carolina, and gave it a government similar to that or- 
dained for the Territory northwest of the Ohio. Out of this 
Territory, in due time, sprang the States of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, though to the latter was added the strip of twelve miles 
wide, ceded by South Carolina. 

DISTRICT OF (r6>Zra/^/^.— All this was simply pushing 
the jurisdiction of the government in a Territorial way. The 
real work of State carving and building, outside of original 
limits, was, however, soon to begin in earnest. But we must 
first notice that important grant which had the effect of fixing 
the location of the National Capital. Article i , Sec. 8, of the 
Constitution empowered Congress " to exercise exclusive legis- 
lation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding 
ten miles square) as may by cession of particular States, and 
the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of 
the United States." By act of her legislature, Dec. 23, 1788, 
Maryland made a cession of territory ten miles square for the 
above purpose. Nearly a year afterwards, Dec. 3, 1789, Vir- 



i 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. . 107 

ginia ceded a like, or less, quantity of land for a similar purpose. 
Thus the government was in possession of more than it needed 
for ai capital. However, it accepted both grants, July i6, 1790, 
and ordained that the same should become the permanent seat 
of government of the United States. In the same act the Presi- 
dent was authorized to fix the boundaries of the cessions so as 
to bring their limits within the constitutional provision of ten 
miles square. This he did by proclamation, March 30, 1791. 
The territory retained embraced sixty-four square miles of that 
part ceded by Maryland and thirty-six of that ceded by Virginia. 
Over this the government assumed control by Act of Feb. 27, 
1 801. But it was cut in twain by the Potomac. Therefore, by 
act of July 9, 1846, the Virginia portion was retroceded to that 
State, leaving the District of Columbia and the permanent seat 
of government to occupy only the Maryland cession of about 
sixty-four square miles. 

VERMONT FIRST.— ThQ introduction of new States makes 
a curious and instructive history. Some ripened as Territories 
and drifted naturally into their places as States of the Union. 
Others were forced into position ere they were ready, in obedi- 
ence to a balancing principle which, at an early day, was resorted 
to for the gratification of sectional feelings and interests. Still 
others were admitted for protective border or commercial rea- 
sons. But, let it be hoped, that all were admitted for their own 
advantage and that of the national government, and that now 
no one would wish to lose its place in the federal arch. 

The first to link her fortunes with the " old thirteen " was 
Vermont. She, above all others, had had an unfortunate terri- 
torial existence, and her admission was a happy escape from 
troubles which otherwise seemed unending. Claimed by Massa- 
chusetts under the wonderful Plymouth charter, by New Hamp- 
shire whose western limit was practically unascertained, by New 
York because "the New Netherlands," afterwards the possession 
of the Duke of York, ran indefinitely northeastward, and by 
France because it lay along a water way into the St. Lawrence, 
and peopled more or less by all these claimants, New Hamp- 
shire had been from the earliest times a common raiding-ground 



108 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

and seat of contention. The fight between New York and New 
Hampshire waxed so bitter that a decision was invoked from the 
crown. New York won, and her hne was adjudged to extend 
to the Connecticut river. The folly of New York in deciding 
the New Hampshire grants of lands in Vermont illegal stirred 
up the landholders to armed resistance. There is no telling 
how far the war would have been carried, for the Vermonters 
were very determined, had not the revolution turned attention 
in another direction. Even during the war with Great Britain 
the Vermonters, January, 1777, established for their territory an 
independent jurisdiction under the name of " New Connecticut or 
Vermont." Thus equipped they petitioned the Continental Con- 
gress for admission into the Union, a request which was entitled 
to respect, for Vermont was playing a brave and important role, 
and was really as much of an independent colony as any other. 
But she was headed off by New York and New Hampshire, 
neither of whom were yet ready to relinquish their hold upon 
her. To make matters worse Massachusetts revived her sleep- 
ing claim to the soil. The plight was pitiable. No redress was 
to be had of the indecisive government of the Confederation, for 
it was really no government at all. The farmers again flew to 
arms under the lead of the intrepid Ethan Allen, and were now 
more than ever determined to resist the attempt of New York 
to push her authority into their midst. The British, knowing 
the tardiness and negligence of the Congress of the Confederation, 
and hoping that the Vermonters would soon be driven to seek 
the protection of a stronger government, actually opened negotia- 
tions to have them cast their lot in with theirs. But these 
spirited Green Mountain men were not disloyal enough for that. 
They clung closely together, kept up a government of their own, 
fought bravely through the war of the revolution, and at the 
peace of 1783 constituted a State, so far as machinery went, as 
perfect as any of the original thirteen. 

After the adoption of the constitution of 1787, and the forma- 
tion of the new government under it, she again petitioned for 
admission. New York opposed her as before. But this time the 
power of the central government was stronger. It could hear 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 109 

and decide, and was willing to do so. A commission was created 
to investigate and decide the conflict. New York was paid 
;^3o,ooo with which to quiet the titles of her citizens holding 
lands in Vermont. Thereupon she withdrew all claims to juris- 
diction, and by act of Feb. i8, 1791, to take effect March 4, 
1 79 1, Vermont was admitted into the Union, with all the rights 
and privileges of a State. As intimated her independent State 
existence became necessary as a cure for the evils which had 
come upon her through conflicting claims of ownership and 
their foolish assertion, and not for any very pressing geographic 
or commercial reason. The United States now embraced four- 
teen States. 

KENTUCKY'S ADMISSION.— Ktniucky vQvy properly 
came into the Union at an early date. She had been a dissatis- 
fied and dangerous Territory for a long time. Her region had 
been a hunting-ground and battle-field remote from her mother 
Virginia, whose protection was quite too feeble to be of any 
account. The wild, brave spirits who had found a home in the 
midst of " the dark and bloody grounds " had more than once 
declared that inasmuch as Virginia could give them no pro- 
tection, they ought to set up a government of their own. But 
they never completely severed their relations with the mother 
colony or State, for the reason that they regarded the govern- 
ment of the Confederation as of no more consequence to them, 
in the matter of protection, than Virginia. So they drifted amid 
years and years of conventions, debates and resolutions, on the 
propriety of doing something toward protective organization. 
At one time it looked as if the entire territory might be lost to 
the Union, and a war to recover it be the consequence. Spain, 
understanding the situation, secretly proposed rare commercial 
favors if the Territory would declare independence and start out 
on a career of its own. Knowledge of this proposition stirred pub- 
lic sentiment to the very bottom. Two conventions * were held in 
quick succession, at Danville, looking toward a territorial govern- 
ment, and as a greater measure of safety toward admission into the 
Union. In these the debates ran high, and disputes were often 

* They were the sixth and seventh which had been held. 



110 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

long and angry. At length out of the turmoil came a proposi- 
tion to recommend separate territorial existence. Congress 
acted promptly and erected " The Territory South of the Ohio 
River," including Kentucky and Tennessee, May 26, 1790. This 
action was followed Feb. 4, 1 791, to take effect June i, 1792, by 
another act admitting Kentucky into the Union as a State. Thus 
was used the old territory of Virginia south of the Ohio. 

TENNESSEE ADMITTED.— Tennessee was that part of 
the national domain ceded by North Carolina, to which was 
added, on the south, the strip of twelve miles wide ceded by 
South Carolina. It was also all that was left of ** the Territory 
South of the Ohio," after Kentucky was admitted. It too was a 
dangerous Territory, bordering as it did on partly foreign waters 
(the Mississippi), and subject to the same inducements to drift 
away from the Atlantic influence, as was Kentucky. Like Ken- 
tucky, also, the Tennessee region had early become the scene of 
white settlement and bloody Indian encounter. It too was " a 
dark and bloody ground " for many years, extending from, say 
1754 to the close of the American revolution. Indeed, during 
the revolution Great Britain attempted to work in the rear of 
the American situation by arming the Cherokees and pushing 
them through the settlements of the Cumberland and on to the 
colonists of Virginia and the Carolinas. Only by the most 
heroic efforts of the Carolina and Virginia militia was the terri- 
tory held against Indian foe and English promise to the inhabi- 
tants of special favors if they too would take up arms against the 
Atlantic colonists. 

As long as the territory belonged to North Carolina it was 
known as the " District of Washington." After the peace of 
1783, and the founding of Nashville, the people felt that the 
Mother Colony was no longer protective, yet like those of Ken- 
tucky, they had no faith in the government of the Confederation, 
and deemed it a feeble power to tie to. They were, therefore, at 
sea as to a proper allegiance, till after the adoption of the Con- 
stitution of 1787. Then, with a stronger central government in 
view, one which could afford the much needed protection, and 
which was worthy of confidence and support, their political 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. m 

future became plain. North Carolina relinquished all control in 
1790, and in the same year Tennessee became a part of "The 
Territory South of the Ohio." Two years after the admission 
of Kentucky, the people formed a State Constitution and pre- 
sented it to Congress. It was approved June i, 1796, and Ten- 
nessee became a State of the American Union, her territory 
having been that of North Carolina and part of South Carolina. 
The admission of Kentucky and Tennessee was a commercial 
necessity. They gave to the Union a Mississippi frontage, 
headed off further Spanish scheming in the upper valley, and 
presented the hand of our dynasty in such a way as to be taken 
hold of in friendly commercial clasp across the " Father of 
Waters," or with iron grip for supremacy from Lake Itaska to 
the Delta. The stars on the American flag numbered sixteen. 

OHIO GETS READY.— Turning the century the govern- 
ment was busy with its " Territory Northwest of the Ohio." By 
act of May 7, 1800, to take effect July i, 1800, it was divided 
into two parts. This was getting ready for the State of Ohio, 
for one part was very like the present Ohio. The other part was 
incorporated into the " Territory of Indiana." And a word about 
this "Territory of Indiana." It of course comprised all that 
was left of " The Territory Northwest of the Ohio," after Ohio 
was taken away. But it had a greater fame before it. After 
France made her cession of Louisiana it was, by act of October 
I, 1804, erected into **The District of Louisiana," and placed 
under 'the jurisdiction of the officers appointed to govern the 
Territory of Indiana. Thus, for purposes of government, the 
Territory of Indiana was a vast empire, the largest by far ever 
organized by the government within its territory. Territorial 
Indiana reached to the Pacific and the gulf. 

The part cut off, and which was to become Ohio, embraced all 
of present Ohio up to a line drawn east and west through the 
southern point of Lake Michigan, and this was Ohio as ad- 
mitted into the Union by act of April 30, 1802, to take effect 
November 29, 1802. But the Ohio of to-day contains some 
600 square miles more territory. Her northern boundary was 
adjusted by act of June 15, 1836, called the "Enabling act for 
the State of Michigan," and by act of Jime 23, 1836. 



112 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

France and England, both original claimants of Ohio, began 
to clash about, and on, the soil as early as 1750. It had been a 
stamping ground for French traders long before this. At that 
time Virginians and Englishmen, having obtained a grant of 
600,000 acres, came as settlers and traders. Frequent collisions 
with the French ended in war. To drive out the French was 
the object of Braddock's disastrous march on Fort Du Quesne. 
Not until the loss of Canada and the Mississippi valley by 
France in 1763, did Ohio become undisputed English soil. On 
account of these rival claims and bloody disputes, permanent 
settlement was tardy in a land so inviting and so contiguous to 
the old States. Even after the organization of " The Territory of 
the Northwest," Ohio was by no means a pleasant place to go to, 
for the Indians were very tenacious of their titles to the land, 
and were kept in a state of ferment and opposition by the 
British on the north. The entire region was in a state of war 
from 1790 to 1794, when the Miamies were humiliated by 
General Wayne. After this migration and settlement were 
phenomenally rapid. 

LOUISIANA COMES.— The mention of Louisiana intro- 
duces us to a strange people. The Latin race was in the ascend- 
ant there and not the Saxon. It was the key to the mouth of 
the Mississippi, and was desirable to any nation with commercial 
ambitions. When Spain held it she was very jealous of it, and 
her ownership was a bar to free commerce through either gulf 
or Mississippi channels. She saw that her occupancy was a 
standing threat on the United States, and that the commercial 
drift of all the country east of the river, whose drainage was 
into it, must be toward her. Hence, her schemes of an empire 
which should embrace both sides of the river. Hence, also, 
those other schemes, of which Aaron Burr's was one, for a great 
southwestern country whose strong point should be control of 
the " Father of Waters " — at this date let it be charitably sup- 
posed, in favor of the United States. 

After the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, no time 
was lost in getting it under control. That part of the immense 
territory now in the State of Louisiana (nearly all) was erected 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. Jjo 

into the "Territory of Orleans," by act of March 26, 1804. 
Claiborne, who was sent as governor, found our form of govern- 
ment unsuitable for a people who spoke little English and whose 
institutions rested on laws and customs foreign to our own. So 
by act of Congress (1805) they were given a government similar 
to that established for the Territory of Mississippi, which also 
contained a mixed Spanish and French population. Out of this 
act sprang a system of local laws, embracing many -features of 
the Code Napoleon, to which the people were reconciled. All 
the rest of the Louisiana purchase went into the District of 
Louisiana, which, as we have seen, became a part of the Terri- 
tory of Indiana. 

Spain would not relinquish her right to the territory of 
Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi, claiming that her ces- 
sion to France did not cover it, and that she still owned it as a 
part of her Florida. Therefore, in 18 10, the United States 
seized the port of Baton Rouge, and adjudged the Spanish 
territory to be a part of Louisiana. An act of Congress passed 
Feb. 20, 18 II, enabled the Territory of Orleans to become a 
State. By act of April 8, 1812, to take effect April 30, the same 
was admitted as a State, under the name of Louisiana. Thus 
finally ended what had for a long time been a quiet struggle 
between Spain and the United States for permanent sovereignty 
of a section which, had the result been otherwise, must have 
for a long time retarded our western growth. The admission 
was a matter of clear and decisive policy, in a commercial 
sense, however much it may have been objected to by certain 
parties at the time. It created a sovereign State right where the 
greatest inducement existed to protect it, and right where one 
of firm attachment to the Union was most needed. It projected 
the national authority to the gulf lines and set up an everlasting 
barrier to interference with Jnternal commerce along ten thou- 
sand miles of water way. 

INDIANA ADMITTED.— ThQ vast Territory of Indiana, 

created in 1800 out of that northwest of the Ohio and extended 

indefinitely by adding, in 1804, the District of Louisiana, now 

gave a State to the Union and its name to that State. It was 

S 



114 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

carved out of the southeastern part of that Territory by the en- 
abling act of April 19, 18 16, and the resolution approving of its 
constitution and admitting it into the Union, as the State of In- 
diana, was passed Dec. ii, 1816. The State was not without a 
remote territorial history. France had dotted it with trading 
and missionary posts, some of which, as Vincennes, became 
permanent settlements. After the loss of the French territory, 
in 1763, to England, Indiana, like Ohio, was not an inviting 
field for settlement. The Indians were tenacious of their lands. 
Their liking for the old French influence, and the ease with 
which the British stirred them up to resent pioneering, kept back 
our civilization. After the treaty of 1783, when the whole ter- 
ritory passed from Great Britain to the United States of the 
Confederation, the Indians became bitterly hostile. In 1788, one 
year after the framing of the constitution, an Indian war broke 
out, which involved the whole Northwest. It only ceased when 
their powerful and dangerous confederacy was broken by the 
victories of General Wayne.' Even then the brave Shawnee 
leader Tecumseh would not submit but held on, a source of 
terror to every infant settlement, till his defeat by General Har- 
rison in the celebrated battle of Tippecanoe, Nov. 11, 1811. 

MISSISSIPPI ADMITTED.— ThQ twentieth State to enter 
the Union was Mississippi. It was carved out of the Territory 
of Mississippi, by act of March i, 18 17, which was also the date 
of the enabling act. Her constitution and form of government 
having been submitted to Congress and approved, she was ad- 
mitted into the Union by joint resolution of Dec. 10, 1 8 17. 
Out of the balance of Mississippi. Territory, the State of 
Alabama was created. 

, ILLINOIS A STATE.— We must turn to the north for the 
next State of the Union. Not less than three States were to be 
formed out of the territory northwest ^of the Ohio. Two have ap- 
peared, Ohio and Indiana. The third takes shape as Illinois. 
It became the Territory of Illinois by act of March i, 1809, 
though it extended clear to the British possessions. By the 
enabling act of April 18, 1818, the present limits of the State 
were fixed, and by joint resolution of Dec. 3, 1818, the State was 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 115 

admitted into the Union. Though the twenty-first State, Illinois 
had a history extending back into the seventeenth century. Her 
towns of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and others were French settle- 
ments and distributing centres as early as 1673. But the 
French occupancy was a lonely one, and Illinois presents the 
historic spectacle of a Christian civilization gradually falling 
back and merging with that of its Indian surroundings. Like 
Ohio and Indiana, Illinois became deeply involved in the French 
and English wars for the possession of the Northwest, and like 
them it passed into British hands by the treaty of 1763, and into 
the possession of the United States by the treaty of 1783. 

ALABAMA ENTERS.— ^ow that we have had a Northern 
State there must be a Southern one. By this time it was 
regarded as the proper thing to create alternate free and slave 
States. Indeed, few States had hitherto been admitted without 
discussion of the question of slavery, and few were to be ad- 
mitted without similar discussion. The matter had been some- 
what bitterly mooted when the question of the Louisiana 
purchase was up, and afterwards when Kentucky was a candi- 
date for admission. Well, the new State was to be Alabama, 
the remnant of Mississippi Territory. Two days after the State 
of Mississippi was cut out of this Territory, the Territory of 
Alabama was formed, March 3, 18 17. Two years afterwards an 
act enabling Alabama to become a State was passed, March 2', 
1 8 19. By joint resolution of Dec. 14, 18 19, she was admitted 
as a State in the Union, the twenty-second on the list. ; i 

MAINE APPEARS.— There was a race between the NoVth 
and South for the next State, the twenty-third. Maine and 
Missouri were the competitors, with Maine in the lead. Lapse 
of time had fixed the claim of Massachusetts to the soil * of 
Maine, and to the right to govern her. There were many of.her 
people, however, who never acknowledged this claim, and 
various attempts were made, notably in 1785 and 1802, to effect 
a separation. At length, in 18 19, the Territorial legislature* 
ordered an election of delegates " to express the true will of th.^ 
people." The convention thus created, operatingf with the con^ 

* Not a Territory of the United States, but a Territory of Massachusetts. ' 



116 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sent of the Legislature of Massachusetts, adopted a constitution 
and separate form of government, which received the approba- 
tion of the people. Massachusetts made formal cession of all' 
her claims to the Territory. By act of Congress, March 3, 1820,* 
to take effect March 15, 1820, Maine was admitted into the 
Union as a State. 

MISSOURI ENTERS AMID STORM.— AX. least a year 
before Maine was admitted, a bill to enable the Territory of Mis- 
souri (a part of the Louisiana purchase) to become a State was 
introduced in Congress. In the House an amendment was 
offered, in the words of the ordinance (1787) for the government 
of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, '* prohibiting slavery or 
involuntary servitude in Missouri, except as a punishment for 
crime." Though the Republicans (Democrats) were in an over- 
whelming majority in both branches, party lines were dropped 
in the House, and the amendment was carried, but was rejected 
in the Senate.* 

This brought the slavery question into a shape it had never 
assumed before. It came suddenly. Ex-President Jefferson 
said, " it startled him like a fire-bell in the night." It came, as a 
question, from the house of its supposed friends. Before this the 
Ohio River had been a convenient line upon which to determine 
these questions of slave and free State admissions. But there 
was no Ohio beyond the Mississippi. Hence a new line became 
necessary, or rather no line, for the best anti-slavery minds con- 
tended that slavery in the Territories was a question absolutely 
within the purview of Congress. It was not a question of 
parties. The Federal party was practically dead, and the Re- 
publican (Democratic) party held the entire political line north 
and south. It therefore became a question of sections, and bit- 
terly the battle was fought over Missouri. The next year (1820) 
the defeated Missouri bill came up again in the House, as did 

* This astounding measure and vote in the House, together with the popularity 
of Clay's plans for American Protection and Internal Improvement, showed that 
there was then the nucleus of a new party vi'ithin the Republican ranks, which was 
soon (1825) to assume shape as the National Republican, afterwards the Whig 
psMTty. 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 117 

the bill to admit Maine. Both passed, and both prohibited 
slavery. The Senate passed the Maine bill, and united it with a 
bill for Missouri, permitting slavery.* This was done to throw 
the responsibility of rejection on the House, a responsibility 
which the House did not hesitate to assume, for it speedily de- 
feated the Senate bill. Henry Clay then came forward with the 
celebrated compromise measure, known as " The Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820," by which both sections agreed to pass the 
respective bills, one admitting Maine as a free State, the other 
admitting Missouri as a slave State, and forever prohibiting 
slavery in all territory north of the line of 36° 30'. 

This memorable controversy ended, the Missouri enabling act 
was passed March 6, 1820. By joint resolution of March 2, 
1 82 1, the admission of the State was further provided for, and 
by proclamation of August 10, the State was declared to be a 
member of the Union. It had a population in excess of the 
60,000 then required to enable a Territory to become a State, 
and its chief town, St. Louis, with a population of 5,000, was the 
commercial emporium of the upper Mississippi. Missouri was 
the first State formed wholly out of the territory west of the 
Mississippi. Though but a small part of that land of Louisiana 
which stretched away to the Pacific and up to the British line, it 
was felt that whatever policy, as to slavery, prevailed in her ad- 
mission would be likely to prevail in all the States carved out 
of the same lands. This was why the fight over her admission 
was so bitter, and why it was deemed proper, then and there, to 
fix the policy which should control the admission of future trans- 
Mississippi States, by the compromise line of 36° 30'. By act 
of June 7, 1836, the northwest boundary of the State was ex- 
tended to the Missouri River, the triangular piece thus added 
containing about 3,168 square miles. 

ARKANSAS ADMITTED.— Th^vQ was a period of rest from 
the work of State building, which lasted for sixteen years, dur- 
ing which time the outlying territories were ripening. The 

* The Senate only partially divided into sections. Enough Northern Senators 
voted with those from the South, to defeat the action of the House. 



118 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

" Territory of Arkansaw " * had been carved out of the Territory 
of Missouri, by act of March 19, 1819. It had Hmits coincident 
with those of the present State. By act of June 15, 1836, the 
same was admitted as the State of Arkansas. It had not a full 
quota of inhabitants when admitted, and but little previous 
history except what belonged to the period of French and 
Spanish occupancy. The French claimed Arkansas Post as 
among the oldest settlements of the country. 

MICHIGAN A CANDIDATE.— Kw important State was 
now ready in the Northwest. The Territory of Michigan had 
been formed as early as June 30, 1805, from the Territory of In- 
diana. It then included but little more than the Michigan penin- 
sula, between Lakes Huron and Erie and Lake Michigan. On 
June 28, 1834, the Territory of Michigan was made to extend to 
the Missouri and White Earth Rivers. Out of this large area 
was carved the present State of Michigan, by the enabling act 
of June 15, 1836. Her constitution and form of government 
having met with the approval of Congress, she was admitted as 
a State by act of Jan. 26, 1837. The trail of the French trader 
and missionary is plainer in Michigan than in any other State of 
the Northwest. Detroit was a French town as early as 170 1. 
River, lake, bay, and town bear frequent witness to the French 
occupancy. It cannot be said that the American influence was 
felt in Michigan before 1796. During the war of 18 1 2, Detroit 
was held by the British, and became the starting-point of those 
Anglo-Indian campaigns which wrapped the Northwest in gloom 
and drenched it with blood. At the time of her admission, 
Michigan had far more than her quota of population, and nearly 
four times as many as Arkansas, admitted the year before. 

FLORIDA A MEMBER.— It was now the turn of the 
" Flowery realm." Though thinly populated, and with but little 
more than half a quota, it was deemed politic to make Florida 
the twenty-seventh State. The " East Florida," which Spain 
ceded Feb. 22, 18 19, was erected into the Territory of Florida 
March 30, 1822. By act of March 3, 1845, it was admitted as a 

* The Territory was that of Arkatisaw, which spelling has recently been decided 
by the State authorities to control the pronunciation of Arkansas. 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. HQ 

State. It had had a long and eventful history both as a Spanish 
and English possession. From its climate, situation, and prom- 
ises, it was always a coveted country, yet ever an expensive one 
to take and hold. 

IOWA ADMITTED,— T\i^ day that gave birth to Florida 
saw also a new State in the Northwest. Iowa Territory had been 
cut out of Wisconsin Territory, June 12, 1838. This Territory 
was not identical with the present State of Iowa, but embraced 
all north of Missouri and between the Missouri and Mississippi 
Rivers. Out of this was carved a State of Iowa, which was ad- 
mitted into the Union March 3, 1845. But the boundaries were 
not satisfactory. By act of Aug. 4, 1846, the northern boundary 
was lowered from the parallel running through the mouth of the 
Mankato or Blue Earth River to where it now is, and the western 
boundary was pushed from meridian of 17° 30' to where it now 
is. After this adjustment of boundaries the State was readmitted 
Dec. 28, 1846. As part of the French domain, Iowa had a 
history as early as 1686, when Dubuque was a fort and trading- 
post. 

TEXAS ANNEXATION.— ThQ twenty-ninth State, Texas, 
was the most imposing piece of territory that had, as yet, applied 
for admission into the Union. It was not carved out of our own 
territory as other States had been, nor was it prepared for mem- 
bership by any process of ripening under a Territorial govern-J; 
ment. A member of the Mexican Repubhc, it had seceded and 
set up for itself Its admission into the American Union would 
be a surrender of its independence to again try the experiment 
of membership in a Republic to which it had all along been for-*- 
eign.* Discussion of the question of Texas Annexation occu^ 
pied most of the time of the second session of the Thirty-eighth 
Congress, 1844-45. ^ proposition to prohibit slavery within its 
borders was voted down.f With full knowledge of the fact that 

* Quite a number of Saxon settlers had drifted into Texas who had done mucl^ 
to foster the spirit of annexation. 

f Mexico had abolished slavery twenty years before, and therefore by the law Of 
the Mexican Republic. Texas was free territory. But Texas, when independent, 
had re-established slavery. 



120 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

its status was one of war with Mexico, and that annexation 
would be an assumption of that status, the Congress voted for 
it. The joint resolution of annexation prohibited slavery in any 
State formed of Texas territory north of 36° 30', but left the 
question to the people of the States to be formed of said terri- 
tory south of that line. ' We have already seen the steps by 
which her territory passed to the United States and the conse- 
quences.* The date of her admission was Dec. 29, 1845. 

WISCONSIN ADMITTED,— Th^ thirtieth State was Wis- 
consin. The Territory of Wisconsin was erected by act of April 
20, 1836. It was cut out of the Territory of Michigan, and that 
part east of the Mississippi had previously been in the Territories 
of Illinois, Indiana and the northwest of the Ohio. The Terri- 
tory of Wisconsin embraced the States of Wisconsin, Iowa and 
part of Minnesota. The Territory of Iowa was severed by act of 
June 12, 1838. By the enabling act of August 6, 1846, Wiscon- 
sin took its present shape, and by act of May 29, 1848, was ad- 
mitted as a State. Like the rest of the northwest territory 
Wisconsin shows in its names of places the trail of its early 
French occupants and owners. 

CALIFORNIA COMES.—The Mexican war ended by the 
peace of February 2, 1848, called the treaty of Guadaloupe- 
Hidalgo. This brought that immense cession of territory men- 
tioned on page 95, and out of which the Territory of California 
was organized. This cession threw the country into another 
ferment over the slavery question. By the laws of Mexico all 
this territory was free. But the proslavery wing of the Demo- 
cratic party joined issue with the friends of the Wilmot Proviso 
and forced another compromise (that of 1850), which, so far as 
California was concerned, had the effect of making her a free 
State.f She applied for admission Feb. 13, 1850, and was ad- 
mitted Sept. 9, 1850. The discovery of gold in her soil, the 
rapid population of the State by the adventurous and not too 
peaceful " forty-niners," and various apparent commercial rea- 
sons, not to say a pardonable national pride, made a State on 

* See an/e, p. 94, and page 533, post. 

■}■ For fuller details of this compromise see page 544. 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 121 

the Pacific coast most desirable. The arch of the Union now 
spanned the continent. From 1787 to 1850 had been just sixty- 
three^ years. 

MINNESOTA ADMITTED.— Ummsot2i Territory had been 
formed March 3, 1849, <^"t ^^ the parts of Territories of Iowa 
and Wisconsin not included in those two States. Out of this 
Territory was carved the present State of Minnesota by the 
enabling act of Feb. 26, 1857. On May 11, 1858, the State of 
Minnesota was admitted into the Union. The balance of Minne- 
sota Territory went to Territory of Dakota. 

OREGON HEARD FROM.—ThQ Pacific Coast presents 
another candidate. The immense Territory of Oregon was 
created out of all the northwestern portion of the Louisiana 
purchase, on Aug. 14, 1848. It extended from the fortieth 
parallel to the British possessions, and from the Pacific to the 
Rocky Mountains, with an area of nearly 300,000 square miles. 
Out of this domain was carved the State of Oregon, which by 
act of Feb. 14, 1859, was admitted into the Union. The rest of 
her Territory became the Territory of Washington. 

KANSAS, AND TROUBLE.— Th^ thirty-fourth State, Kan- 
sas, had a stormy birth. The throes she engendered shook the 
Union to its very centre. The celebrated Kansas- Nebraska bill 
was introduced into the House Jan. 23, 1854. It was designed 
to establish the fact that the compromise of 1820 had been re- 
pealed by that of 1850, and further to establish the principle that 
slavery, north or south of 36° 30', was a matter for the people 
of each Territory to decide for themselves. The bill passed in 
March, 1854, and both North and South encouraged colonization 
within the limits of Kansas, which the bill created into a Terri- 
tory immediately west of Missouri and between 37° and 40°, 
as well as Nebraska, lying north of Kansas and between 40° and 
43°. Under the circumstances the condition of Kansas was that 
of constant petty war. It became. a " bleeding Kansas " indeed, 
and as to bloodless party passion the rest of the country was no 
better off.* For seven years this warfare went on, and only ended 

* For fuller details of Kansas-Nebraska question see Administrations and Con- 
gresses, pages 554 ^"^^ 5^^* 



122 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

after the work of seceding from the Union began. Then the 
government which had been set up under the Lecompton con- 
stitution was repudiated, and that formed under the Wyandot 
Free State Constitution was adopted by a RepubHcan Congress 
Jan. 29, 1 86 1, and Kansas became a State in the Union. The 
Territory of Kansas formed under the bill of Jan. 23, 1854, 
adopted May 30, 1854, had for its western boundary the Rocky 
Mountains, which were the eastern boundary of Utah. The act 
\yhich admitted her as a State fixed the 25th meridian as her 
western boundary. All the rest of the Territory of Kansas went 
to the Territory of Colorado. 

WEST VIRGINIA CREATED.— The destructive work of 
secession introduced a new feature in State building. Virginia 
seceded from the Union and cast her lot with the Southern Con- 
federacy, April 17, 1 86 1. Some thirty-nine of the western coun- 
ties refused to be bound by her action. Representatives from 
these met at Wheeling to protest against secession. A second 
convention met in August which framed a separate State con- 
stitution and form of government. This was submitted, to the 
people in May, 1862, and ratified. It was then submitted to 
Congress, and after some slight amendments was accepted. The 
President was authorized to proclaim that it should take effect 
June 19, 1863, on which date West Virginia became a State in 
the Union. In 1872 the counties of Jefferson and Berkley, parts 
of Old Virginia, were added to West Virginia, the thirty-fifth 
State. 

NEVADA ADMITTED.— NGV2id2i Territory was erected 
March 2, 1861, out of a strip from California, and that part of 
Utah Territory lying west of 38th meridian, though California 
has not yet made f(3rmal cession of the portion taken from her. 
The enabling act for the Territory was passed March 21, 1864, 
and on October 31,1 864, Nevada was admitted as a State. Her 
boundaries were much enlarged by act of May 5, 1866, which 
added some 18,326 square miles from Utah, and 12,225 square 
miles from Arizona, Territories. 

NEBRASKA ACCEPTED.— The original Territory of Ne- 
braska was erected May 30, 1854, out of that part of the public 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 123 

domain lying between Minnesota and the Rocky Mountains and 
between 40° N. lat., and the British possessions. But as part of 
this Territory shared with Kansas the vicissitudes of the slavery 
excitement, the paring process, which ran through half a dozen 
acts of Congress, did not end till April 19, 1864, when an 
enabling act was passed for the present limits of Nebraska. On 
February 9, 1867, she was admitted as a State, the act to take 
effect March i, 1867. 

THE CENTENNIAL STATE.—The Territory of Colorado 
was created by act of February 28, 186 1. It was one of a set 
then erected,* about which no mention of slavery was made 
in obedience to the terms of the Dred Scott decision. But there 
was then no need of such mention, for the South had given up 
its efforts to populate the debatable Territories and vote therein 
for slavery, and had entered upon secession as a remedy for evils 
it deemed otherwise incurable. Owing to mining, Colorado had 
a fluctuating population for many years. A State Constitution 
was framed in convention 1875-76, and accepted by the 
people July I, 1876. The date of final admission was August 
I, 1876. 

TEARING DOWN—ThQ sentiment of the country respect- 
ing slavery had grown more divergent ever since the adoption 
of the Constitution. It was not at first sectional, but as time 
passed it took that shape. Then it got to be political as well. 
The Kansas affair (see Kansas), the division of the Democratic 
party in its convention of i860, the evidence of a solidified and 
overwhelming anti-slavery sentiment supplied by the election of 
Mr. Lincoln, determined the slave States to no longer fight a 
losing battle for the maintenance and spread of their institution 
in the Union, but to secede and set up a central government of 
their own. Not doubting the wisdom of the step nor their ability 
to maintain it against the armed remonstrance they knew it was 
sure to provoke, they began the work of dismemberment in i860. 
The war which followed, and its results, must be the historic test 
of both the wisdom and strength of their undertaking, as well as 
of the ability of the Union to maintain itself against this kind 

^ Including Nevada and Dakota. 



124 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of attack, and to adapt itself to the prevalent vital thought of 
each succeeding age. 

The first open and direct step of dismemberment was taken by 
South Carolina in a convention called for the purpose. It was 
an ordinance of secession entitled "An Ordinance to dissolve the 
Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united 
with her in the compact entitled the Constitution of the United 
States of America," and was to take effect Dec. 20, i860. Before 
the end of January, 1 861, similar ordinances had been passed by 
Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. 
Delegates frorn these States met at Montgomery, Alabama, in 
February, 1 861, and formed a government called the ** Confederate 
States of America," whose constitution closely resembled that 
which they had repudiated, save that it recognized slavery and 
prohibited protective tariffs. This Confederacy attracted other 
slave -holding States to it, to wit, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas 
and North Carolina. Thus -eleven States were lost to the 
American Union and were in open war with it. It was the 
hardest and most direct blow ever administered to the Republic, 
because it came not from strangers but friends, not from without 
but within. The shock was fearful. For four years the grand 
monument of the fathers trembled to its base. For four years 
Republican institutions existed amid cloud and darkness, doubt- 
ful of clearing sky or auspicious sunrise. Those years ended, 
the result was failure of the Confederacy to maintain itself, the 
loss of slavery to its States, surrender of the attempt to wrench 
by force what reason could not win. 

REBUILDING. — This was a delicate and somewhat tedious 
task. There was no standard by which to determine the relation 
of these seceded States to the National Union, now that they 
had failed to validate by force their ordinances of separation. 
But the Supreme Court furnished one in 1869, in the case of 
Texas vs. White. It was held that " the ordinances of secession 
were absolutely null," that the I seceding States had no right to 
secede, had never been out of the Union, could not get out ex- 
cept through successful rebellion. That the utmost they had 
done vvas to put off their old State governments, and take on 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 125 

others which fitted them for membership in their Confederacy, 
but unfitted them for the place a State must hold in the Union, 
under the amended Constitution. That, therefore, the Congress 
had the right to re-establish the relation of these seceded 
States to the Union. The terms fixed were the establishment 
of State Constitutions and forms of government in accord with 
the amended National Constitution, and full ratification of its 
provisions. Waiving the above questions, Tennessee had sought 
and secured readmission, July 24, 1866; Arkansas, June 22, 
1868; North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia and 
Florida under act of June 25, 1868, but with the proviso that 
they must further subscribe to the act of 1867 regarding free 
citizenship. All did this promptly except Georgia. Virginia 
was readmitted Jan. 25, 1870; Mississippi, Feb. 23, 1870; Texas, 
March 30, 1870. Georgia held out for the right to exclude 
negroes from office, but finally opened her offices to all citizens, 
and was readmitted July 15, 1870. The Union was restored to 
its full strength and majesty — let it be said to a fuller strength 
and majesty than before. 

THE TERRITORIES. UTAH.—Oi those vast outlying 
acres not yet ready for States, but which have organizations and 
governments through Congress, Utah Territory was formed Sept. 
9, 1850. It had then an immense area of 220,000 square miles, 
parts of which were spared to Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and 
Wyoming, leaving its present boundaries and an area of 82,190 
square miles. This Territory is the seat of Mormonism, and 
has on that account been conspicuous in our history. 

NEW MEXICO. — The Territory of New Mexico was erected 
Sept. 9, 1850, the same day as Utah. It embraced lands ceded 
by Mexico and those included in the Gadsden purchase. By 
losing parts to Colorado and Arizona it has gotten its present 
boundaries and an area of 122,460 square miles. 

WASHINGTON. — Six years before Oregon became a State 
her immense territory was severed, and the northern portion be- 
came W^ashington/ Territory, March 2, 1853. By losing the 
Territory of Idaho, and part of Nebraska, it got its present 
boundaries and an area of 66,880 square miles. 



126 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

THE INDIAN COUNTRY.— Th^ idea of settinglpart a por- 
tion of our domain for the exclusive use of Indians was not 
more humanitarian than the result of a need for protection. 
Remains of brave tribes, many of them despairing, most of them 
at enmity with the whites, were scattered about in the States and 
Territories. To get rid of them by putting them on soil they 
could call their own, where they would not be in the white man's 
way and where they might, perchance, lift themselves a little 
toward the civilization which had surrounded them and driven 
them thither, was the object of an Indian Country. It was laid 
off geographically, but was not organized as a Territory, June 
30, P834. It was to embrace "all that part of the United States 
west of the Mississippi, and not within the States of Missouri, 
Louisiana and the Territory of Arkansas." The extent of this 
country and the fact that no organization was provided for 
showed that the legislation which set it apart was not serious. 
Almost immediately the land began to be needed for other pur- 
poses, and there was nothing in the act setting it apart for Indian 
uses to raise even so much as a question about the impropriety 
or wrongfulness of dividing it up and appropriating it to other 
uses. So by various Acts of Congress this "Indian Country" 
was pared down to its present size and shape. The last act, that 
of May 30, 1854, organizing the Territory of Kansas, limited it 
to 69,830 square miles, with Missouri and Arkansas on its east, 
Kansas on its north, the Red River on its south and the looth 
meridian on its west. 

The "Indian Country" is a monument of national honor and 
disgrace; honor, because it is the first distinct recognition, on 
the part of our government, of a policy that savored of human- 
ity ; disgrace, because, until lately, it was the only formal an- 
nouncement of such a policy, and because through lack of 
candor, through bad management, through failure to engraft on 
it any working system, it has never produced a satisfactory 
fruitage. It seems amazing that the Saxon, even when highly 
civilized and in the enjoyment of strong, reducing and redeem- 
ing institutions, should always have regarded the Indian problem 
as a difficult one. It never was difficult. The French mission*-; 



BUILDING POLITICALLY. 127 

ary and trader did not find it so. But then he chose to regard 
the Indian as a man, as endowed with feeling akin to his own, as 
owner of the soil, as susceptible to civilizing influences. Failure 
to so regard him is the secret of our neglect of the Indian, or 
rather of our ungenerous treatment of him. The idea of his 
extermination got an early hold on the colonist, and we seem 
never to have been able to outgrow this primitive and absurd no- 
tion. Modern humanitarians are more awake to the thought of 
making the Indian a part of our people. They feel the disgrace 
the nation has brought on itself, and the age, by its unwillingness 
or inability to devise a plan by which the Indian can be turned 
from his ways and made a factor in industry, art, science, govern- 
ment and morals. With a plan of government which will secure 
him schools, right to own separate farms, ownership of the pro- 
ceeds thereof, immunity from disturbance by whites when he 
appears to be in the way, the franchise, privileges of citizenship, 
there is no doubt of his future peacefulness and usefulness. 

DAKOTA. — Dakota Territory was erected by act of March 
2, 1 86 1, out of the Territory of Nebraska, and the remains of 
Minnesota Territory. It contained 310,867 square miles, but 
by losing Idaho, and by other adjustments, it was left with its 
present area of 147,700 square miles, July 25, 1868. 

ARIZONA. — Arizona was made a Territory Feb. 24, 1863, 
out of lands ceded by Mexico, and embraced in the Territory of 
New Mexico. By act of May 5, 1866, she lost a part of her 
soil to Nevada. Present area 112,920 square miles. 

IDAHO. — Idaho was formed from Washington Territory, 
March 3, 1863. Her area was 118,439 square miles, which was 
increased by various acquisitions to 326,373 square miles. 
Then by losses to Montana, Dakota and Wyoming, she got her 
present boundary, and area of 84,290 square miles, all of which 
was once in Washington Territory, formerly in Oregon Terri- 
tory, and is a part of the Louisiana Purchase. 

MONTANA — Was erected May 26, 1864, from northern 
Idaho. Her entire area of 145,310 square miles is part of the 
Louisiana Purchase. 

ALASKA ACQUISITION-— This territory is unorganized, 



128 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 

though efforts to secure a Territorial organization ^re now 
being made. It came into the possession of the United States 
May 28, 1867, from Russia (see ante). Our evidences of 
sovereignty there and the keeping of the peace depend on the 
presence of the miHtary or naval branches of the government. 
Area 531,409 square miles ; or as large as two States like Texas, 
twenty like Pennsylvania, or four hundred and thirty-four like 
Rhode Island. 

WYOMING. — The last Territory formed was Wyoming, by 
gict of July 25, 1868. Area 97,575 square miles. It embraces 
the remnants of more States and Territories than any other, 
being the last formed. It includes parts of the French and 
Mexican cessions, and parts of what were Oregon, Nebraska, 
Idaho, Dakota, Washington and Utah Territories. 

ALL I/ARMON/O US.— This brings all the Territory of the 
United States into definite subdivisions, and gives to each a form 
of government in harmony with the government of the whole. 
The States have constitutions, forms of government, and codes 
of laws, enacted by their people, and in accord with the federal 
constitution. The Territories have only statutory existence and 
definite metes and bounds. Their governments do not exist by 
voice of the people but by Act of Congress : they therefore are 
provisional and temporary, lasting till the people are sufficiently 
numerous * and unanimous to form acceptable State govern- 
ments. As already seen, Alaska is held under a military or 
naval government. 

* In general, the population ought to equal the last apportionment for a member 
of Congress, But where commercial or other high reasons exist, States are often 
admitted with a less quota. 




AMERICAN PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRIES. 




BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY; 

OR, 

ADVANTAGE AND RESOURCE. 

HAT we have learned of the dawn of our government and 
of its completed j)oIitical shape may serve to invite 
further study of its structure and better knowledge of 
its real sources of vitality. Constitutions may be very 
complete, institutions may be very grand, but that which gives 
them solemnity and efficacy is resource. 

That our institutions do promote national peace, encourage 
individual and corporate enterprise, favor the growth of wealth 
and morals, contribute to that political and material development 
which may be said to be peculiar to the United States, none will 
deny. But outside of them we have a country whose grandeur 
is phenomenal. Without lowering our pride of institution, 
weakening our patriotism, or departing in any large degree from 
exact truth, it may be said that any constitutional form of gov- 
ernment which secured freedom of action in dealing with our 
practically inexhaustible resources and measureless advantages, 
among which may be mentioned our mineral treasures, fruitful 
soil, beneficent climate and unexampled geographic situation, 
would have made of the United States a home filled with plenty 
and comfort, and one equally attractive to the seekers of fortune 
from other parts of the globe. 

While, therefore, we very properly dispose ourselves to study 
of the principles of our government, and seek to know their 
germs and results, we cannot know ourselves entirely till we 
learn something of our material side. And, rest assured, there 
is as much in that side to delight the understanding, encourage 
pertinent inquiry, stimulate to admiration, and contribute to in- 
9 (129) 



130 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

telligent citizenship, as in any other. Indeed, we do not hesitate 
to say that in a physical or material sense, the United States are 
a more wonderful study, their endowment, so to speak, more 
superb by contrast, their resource more exceptional and blessed 
than in a strictly political or institutional sense. 

We do not say this for the purpose of diminishing the impor- 
tance of any part of our wonderful history, but rather to inspire 
inquiry into a portion which, because it cannot be spiritedly pre- 
sented, and appeals to no passion, is very apt to be neglected. 
All should be read together, for they are parts of a majestic 
picture, any one of which being absent the whole is impaired. 

CLIMATE. — The United States proper is entirely within the 
north temperate zone. But while this is so it has a greater 
variety of climate than any other single country. One may 
select a residence with the temperature of Moscow or Calcutta, 
for its" northern boundary is but 17^° from the frigid zone, and 
its southern but i )^° from the torrid zone. Few countries equal 
it in breadth north and south, and fewer still in length east and 
west. These facts, added to wonderful differences of elevation 
and to its land and water conformations, heighten the variety of 
■climate, making it genial here and severe there, but nowhere un- 
inviting or deadly, rather everywhere conducive to the growth 
of a highly civilized community — cold enough to make a home 
necessary, warm enough to encourage husbandry. 

The scientific test of climate is its mean annual temperature. 
This is the average temperature of a place as ascertained from 
all the observations made in a year. It runs from 72° Fahren- 
heit at St. Augustine or New Orleans to 36° on the high plains 
of Minnesota, or 43° in Maine, and drops into a range of from 
51° at Puget Sound to 62° at San Diego, Cal. Our Atlantic 
coast temperature is uniformly much lower than that of the 
same latitudes in Europe, the difference being in some instances 
equivalent to as much as 10° of latitude. 

Inland the four mountain ranges, Appalachian in the east and 
Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges in the 
west, have a wonderful effect on our climate. While the long 
slopes of these mountains and the extensive valleys between are 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 131 

vast reservoirs of heat, they are tempered by the proximity of 
these cool, wooded and often snow-capped heights to an extent 
that keeps them within the Hmit of temperate. 

Moisture affects cHmate. The rainfall of the Atlantic coast 
is very uniform, being 42 inches annually in New England, and 
increasing gradually to 63 inches in Florida. So the distribution 
of heat is far more uniform in this portion of the United States 
than in any other. The Mississippi valley, as high up as St. 
Louis, is within the influence of south and southwesterly winds 
(supposably gulf trade winds), which give a heavy rainfall to the 
Southern States, and gradually decreases to the north. But the 
whole country being practically within the region of variable 
winds, there is quite a variety of moisture, and, in so far as 
climate depends upon it, an equal variety of climate. A re- 
markable feature of our climate is that of the extreme North- 
west, which is affected by the Pacific waters. A region of com- 
parative mildness, covering many degrees of latitude, extends 
inland from the Puget Sound section, and its genial influence is 
not lost till it passes to the head waters of our great lakes. 

This wonderful variety of temperate climate is one of our 
greatest natural advantages and most pleasing attractions. It 
consults the health, habit and taste of every citizen, ancf conduces 
to an abundance of soil products unsurpassed by any other 
nation. 

VEGETATION. — Vegetation affects climate and yet depends 
on it. All east of the Mississippi is a region of forest and 
prairie vegetation. Westward, and especially northwestward, the 
region is prairie, running into arid uplands. In the northern part 
of the first region the evergreens predominate, as pine, spruce 
and hemlock. In the middle part, say at 38° to 42° lat, the 
evergreens give way to oak, elm, ash, maple, chestnut, walnut, 
hickory, and other deciduous trees. Thence southward to the 
gulf evergreens of another class appear, giving fame to southern 
forests as the best in the world for live oak and pitch pine. The 
region west of the Mississippi, running into uplands, bears in- 
digenously only grass and herb plants, though it will support 
forests if properly planted. It is treeless by nature because the 



132 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

prevailing winds are westerly and the ranges of mountains tap 
the Pacific evaporations before they can be borne so far inland. 
Art is striving to overcome this obstacle to forest growth. 

Beyond are the great plains and elevated plateaus of the Cor- 
dilleras, with still less humidity of atmosphere, with an alkaline 
and comparatively barren soil, and with treeless embellishment, 
save as some kindly bottom or protecting recess invites growth. 
West and northwest of the alkali plains the region is again, in 
general, forest-bearing, some of the growth being gigantic and 
dense, and mostly of pine and fir. The Pacific slopes have both 
peculiar vegetation and climate. The winters are mild, short and 
rainy, and the summers dry. They are an American reproduc- 
tion of the Mediterranean slopes of France and Italy. 

POPULATION.— ThQ population of the United States has 
increased in the following rapid ratio : 



Per cent. 

1790 3,929,214 of iiicre.-.se. 

1800 5,308,483 35.1 

1810 7,239,881 36.38 

1820 9.633,822 33.06 

1830 12,866,020 3--5I 



Per cent, 
of increase. 

1840 17.069,453 32.52 

^^-^ 23,191,876 35.83 

i860 31,443,321 35.11 

1870 38,558,371 22.65 

1880 5o» 1 55,783 30-08 



Subdivided and allotted the following appears : 

Persons., .'. 50»I55>783 I Fnmi'iesto a sq. mile 3.43 

Area in sq. miles (omitting D\fellings to a sq. mile 3,02 



Alaska) 2,Q70,'"< 

Families 9,945,916 

Dwellings 8,955,812 

Persons to a sq. mile 17-29 



J Ci • 3 lo a pers )a. . . '. Zl '^'^ 

Acres to a family 186.62 

Persons to a dwelling 5.60 

Persons to a family 5.04 



The rank of the United States may be better seen thus : 

Countries. Population. 

Chinese Empire 435,000,000 Est. 

British India 250,000,000 

Russinn Emjiire 98,000,000 

United States 50,000,000 

Germany 45,000,000 

Austria 40,000,000 

France 38,000,000 

Great Britain and Ireland.. . 35,000,000 

Japan 36,000,000 

Turkey 33,000,000 

Italy 27,000,000 

Spain 17,000,000 

From which it appears that the United States ranks as the 
fourth country in population, British India being considered as 



Sq. miles. 


Inhibitnntsto 




Sq. mile. 


4,000,000 


109 


800,000 


312 • 


8,500,000 


II 


3,500,000 


H 


208,000 


216 


240,000 


166 


204,000 


186 


121,000 


290 


146,000 


246 


1,800,000 


18 


113,000 


239 


183,000 


93 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 133 

a part of Great Britain. It will be seen also that, except-Russia, 
it is the thinnest populated of the great nations. The most 
densely populated country is Belgium, its 11,373 square miles 
supporting a population of 5,500,000, or about 480 to the square 
mile. 

The rapidity of increase in our population is marvellous. It 
has held to a decennial average of over 30 per cent., or a grand 
total of over 1200 per cent, on the census of 179O. This rate 
is from five to seven times that of Great Britain, Russia or 
France. It is attributable to births or natural increase, and 
somewhat to territorial acquisition. 

But immigration has contributed more than any other factor 
to our wonderful rate of increase in population. There are no 
returns of immigrant arrivals prior to 1820, but in that year the 
arrivals were 8,385 ; in 1830, 23,322; in 1840, 84,066; in 1850, 
569,980. These beginning figures of each decade show that the 
intermediate years witnessed a rapid increase of arrivals. In 
1854 the arrivals reached the hitherto unprecedented number of 
427,833. From that time till i860 they fell off each year, the 
arrivals then being only 153,640. This was owing to the panic 
of 1857. During 186 1 the arrivals were 91,920, and in 1862 
about the sam^ In 1863 they were 176,282, and in 1864, 193,- 
416. These were the years of the civil war. From that time 
on they arose each year till 1873, when they were 437,004. 
Then came the panic of 1873, and there was an annual falling 
off till 1878, when they were 138,469. Then there was a re- 
bound, and in 188 1 the figures were 669,431 ; in 1882, 712,544; 
in 1883, 560,196, an average for the three years of over 600,000 
a year. These figures are curious as showing that our prosperity 
is a direct invitation to immigration. They are also significant 
as pointing to the constancy and strength of this element of in- 
crease in our population. The total immigration since 179O 
exceeds 1 1,000,000 persons, and the number of foreigners in our 
midst in 1880 as shown by the census was 6,679,943. 

Assuming that the value of each immigrant is ^800, the total 
of 11,000,000 added to our population from time to time has 
directly increased the wealth of the country by the stupendous 
sum of ;^8,8oo,ooo,ooo. 



i88i. 1882. 1883. 

Sweden."... 49,760 58,739 28,748 

Canada. ... 102,922 83,074 62,218 

All other 

countries 



} 93,345 105,925 65,821 



134 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

t 

For the past three years foreign countries contributed to our 

population as follows : 

1881. 1882. 1883. 

^Ma,;S}'53>7:8 .63.355 .6..4.5 

Germany . . 210,485 229,996 180,812 

Austria.... 21,109 I5»950 11,032 

Itiily 15,387 29,317 29,446 

Norway.... 22,705 26,188 19,704 669,431 712,544 560,196 

This proportion of the respective nationalities does not hold in 
all the past. All-in-all Great Britain and Ireland, chiefly through 
Ireland, has been the largest contributor. But of late years the 
German tide has been flowing hitherward the strongest; not 
strong enough however to catch up with the British tide, for we 
find that of our 6,679,943 foreign-born population in 1880, 
2,772,169 were from Great Britain and Ireland, and 1,966,742 
from the German Empire. 

Looking back along the line of causes which have led to this 
great immigration, we find first the attractiveness of our institu- 
tions. They offer in general larger political freedom, and in busi- 
ness men are not tied down by iron-clad caste. Excellence and 
cheapness of land form another cause. The opening of the then 
Northwest invited a heavy stream of immigration, beginning with 
1825. This stream was accelerated in 1832, and for a few years 
afterwards by troubles in Europe. The loss of the potato crop 
in Ireland in 1847 perceptibly increased the inflow. Now the new 
Northwest with its splendid wheat-fields offers fresh attractions. 
The certainty of finding labor, higher pay for the same than 
abroad, equality of citizenship, suffrage after five years* residence, 
and various causes which will readily occur to the reader, have 
operated and will operate as invitations to foreigners to come 
and dwell with us. 

Many tinges during our history the question of immigration 
has agitated the popular mind, and once it took political shape, 
giving rise to the American or Know-Nothing party, in or about 
1844. It is true that the quality of immigrants has not at all 
times been of the best, and their number has sometimes been 
startling. But our traditions have ever favored their coming, 
except in the shape of absolute criminals and paupers. If in- 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 135 

dustrlous and frugal they can never be objectionable ; and re- 
specting such, it is safe to say, ** let them come just as fast as the 
country can assimilate them." The objection to the native 
American idea was that it drew no line of distinction between a 
profitable and profitless immigrant. Many who would be 
profitable are tempted to stop in the cities, where they become 
so clannish as to prevent assimilation, or quickly augment 
the criminal classes. This is one of the wrongs of liberty, but 
its corrective is not in locking our doors to every 'one that 
knocks. 

The voting population of the United States, under the census 
of 1880, appears approximately as follows: 

MALES OVER TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE. 



ative Whites. 


Foreign-born. 


Colored, Chinese, Japanese 
and Civilized Indians. 


Total. 


8,270,518 


3,072,487 


1,487,344 


12,830,349 



The number of votes actually polled in the Presidential -election 
of 1880 was 9,204,428. Therefore one-fourth of the males over 
twenty-one years of age did not vote. 

The natural militia of the United States, that is, all betweeni 
the ages of eighteen and forty-four, is 10,231,239. This is our 
defensive or offensive contingent. From such a number many 
magnificent armies could be recruited. 

The colored population of the United States was, in 1880, 
6,580,793. They are chiefly in the Southern States, as will be 
seen in the population tables of the respective States. Since\ 
the abolition of slavery they rank as citizens, but on account 
of color they are productive of problems. Their natural in- 
crease is set down as greater in proportion than that of the 
whites. Accepting this as true, and allowing that with equal 
opportunities they will, in time, become as intelligent, persever- 
ing and thrifty, they must rise to great industrial importance in 
a zone of our country which seems peculiarly fitted for them by 
reason of its climate and production. 

In all other respects nationalities will blend and disappear in 
our domains, and we shall have the proud distinction of having 



136 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

built the world into our population, inspired it with love of free 
institutions, awakened in it new thoughts of man's capacity for 
improvement, and given it full faith in his ability to govern him- 
self without the interposition of jeweled crown or cruel sceptre. 
What we shall then be in language,. it is not hard to tell. An 
adequate English will be the common speech, rich in commer- 
cial, industrial and scientific phrases, strong and apt for conver- 
sation, direct for argument, and facile for pathos, poetry and 
love. What we shall be physically and in the elements of man- 
hood, may be surmised from what we are already permitted to 
see. There is no cross under our free institutions, on our fruit- 
ful soil, and amid our grand opportunities, between German, 
English, Scotch, Irish, Swede, Frank, Swiss, Italian, Russian, or 
what not, that does not result in a better American than the 
original. The mixing of bloods, tempers, geniuses, and all 
constitutional qualities, under the auspices here existent, 
must as surely produce a stronger, braver and more catholic 
man as did a blending of similar qualities on the plains of Nor- 
mandy. 

OCCUPATIONS.— ThG people of the United States are 
divided, for statistical purposes, into four great classes of occu- 
pations, viz. : Agriculture, Professional and Personal Services, 
Trade and Transportation, and Manufactures, which last includes 
mechanical and mining industries. The showing for each is as 
follows : 

All Persons. Males. Females. 

Agriculture 7^670,493 l-.^ISS^Z 594^510 

Professional and Personal Sei-vices 4,074,238 2,712,943 1,361,295 

Trade and TmnsiM^rtation 1,810,256 1,750,892 59^364 

Manufacturing, Mechanical and Mining.. 3.837,112 3,205,124 631,988 

Total 17,392,099 14,744,942 2,647,157 

From this it will seen that 34.68 per cent, of our population is 
engaged in gainful occupation. In 1870 the proportion so en- 
gaged was 32.43 per cent, of the population, the entire number 
then being 12,505,923. We are, therefore, growing more in- 
dustrious. It will be seen too that, so far as the numbers em- 
ployed indicate, we are as yet essentially an agricultural people. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 137 

though the other occupations show a greater relative increase of 
persons engaged during the past ten years. 

AGRICULTURE. — This branch of industry finds a natural 
home in the United States. It has ever been a great and con- 
stant contributor to our national wealth and prosperity, and the 
country's mainstay in time of depression or war. Its growth 
has been phenomenal. A propitious climate and inviting soil 
have encouraged native energy, and held out perpetual induce- 
ment to foreigners. The government has always fostered this 
industry, regarding it as the safest in point of investment and 
the best criterion of permanent progress. It has thrown open 
its public lands to agricultural settlers at nominal figures, and has 
created a Department of Agriculture whence may flow improved 
seeds, and such information as will keep our farming communities 
abreast of the world. 

It is a regretable fact that agriculture in the United States has 
not been carried on as an exact study. This is attributable to the 
excellent native qualities of the soil, to the. kindliness of the 
climate, and to that rush after fresh landed possession so 
characteristic of the American. It may be said that the time 
has not yet arrived, especially in the newer States, which is to ad- 
monish the agriculturist against hard usage of the soil, and teach 
him that annual treasures can be gathered from it only at the 
expense of scientific care. The native dignity and independ- 
ence of agricultural life are appreciated by all, but not as they 
will be when the life comes to Involve the pleasures of study into 
soil resource and plant growth, and when its surroundings 
shall be an atmosphere of intelligent inquiry and exalted experi- 
ment. 

Still we look in vain for anything like our rapid agricultural 
development among other nations. Australia is the nearest 
approach to it, yet far behind. Over seven millions of our 
people are helping to swell the pages of that brilliant history. 
Their genius and earnestness are attested by the introduction of 
labor-saving machines and high-grade implements, which make 
our agricultural system distinctive among the nations of the 
world. Yet, with all this, there crops out the disparaging fact 



138 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

that the average of cereal products per acre is not increasing, 
but rather diminishing. This is not compHmentary to the 
system nor to the patron of husbandry. It is evidence of a wear 
and tear of soil, which its virgin character will not long excuse. 
It is further the completest argument in the world in favor of 
immediate change from soil murder to soil culture. To break in 
wild prairie, to level primeval forest, to plow, sow, and reap, to 
revel in a wealth of golden product, these must all come under 
agriculture, but how mucli bettor if they embraced also the intel- 
ligent care and quiet fitness of things involved in the term til- 
lage. 

Agriculture is woven so intimately with our prosperity that 
our annual crops are the best possible gauge of business feeling. 
Grain and cotton are as barometric as gold and stocks. Dep- 
recating always a speculative tendency, it is yet a happy thing 
that a nation with so many resources is thus compelled to 
graduate its prosperity by an industry so noble as agriculture, 
and so helpful ; so productive of good homes for the people, so 
conducive to freedom and health, so promotive of morals, and 
sturdy citizenship. 

CORN. — This is the American crop, the maize of the Indian, 
not the comi of Egypt. It was what Raleigh studied among the 
tribes of North Carolina, and what the Puritan and Cavalier 
learned to rely on when other food failed. It is a widely dis- 
tributed crop, a leading food for man and beast, and a supply for 
a large and increasing foreign derpand. But though raised, 
more or less, in all the States, the Lake States have no surplus, 
the South has to buy of the West, and only nine of the States, 
including Kentucky and Tennessee, bordering on the Ohio and 
Missouri Rivers, have corn for export. The distribution of the 
crop of 1 88 1 gives at a glance the corn areas of the country and 
their importance. 

Bushels. Bushels. 



New England States. . . . 7,476,000 

Middle States 65,453,000 

Southern Slates 217,152,000 

Kentucky and Tennessee 87,856,000 



Central Western States. . 737,759,000 
Lake States (Michigan, 

Wis, and Minn.) 70,360,000 

Pacific States and Terr's . 8,860,000 



The Central Western States are therefore the true corn areas 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. I39 

of the country. Now notice their remarkable development in 
the line of this product. 

1849- 1S59. 1869. 1879. 

Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. 

Ohio 50,078,695 73,543.190 67,501,144 111,877,124 

Indiana... 52,964,363 71,588,919 51,094,538 115,482,300 

Illinois... 57,646,984 115,174,777 129,921,395 325,792,481 

Iowa 8,656,799 42,410,686 68,935,065 275,024,247 

Missouri.. . 36,214,537 72,892,157 66,034,075 202,485,723 

Kansas 6,150,727 17,025,525 105,729,325 

Nebraska . 1,482,080 4,736,710 65,450,135 

2i5>56i,378 383,242,536 405,248,452 1,201,841,335 

The next table we present is full of wonders. It shows a 
gradual lowering of the average yield per acre, an increase in 
the price per bushel, a falling off in the profit per acre, yet a 
steady and surprising growth of acreage and bushels. In order 
to make the view more valuable, it is extended over eleven years. 











Value 


Yield 


Value. 


Years. 


Production. 


Acres. 


Value. 


per Bush. 


per Acre. 


per Acre. 








$ 


Cents. 


Bushels. 


$ 


187I 


991,898,000 


34,091,137 


478,275,900 


48.2 


29.1 


14.02 


1872 


1,092,719,000 


35,526,835 


435,149,290 


39-8 


3^-7 


12.24 


1873 


932,274,000 


39,197,148 


447,183,020 


48.0 


23.8 


II.4I 


1874 


850,148,500 


41,036,918 


550,043,080 


64.7 


20.7 


13.40 


1875 


1,321,069,000 


44,841,371 


555,445,930 


42.0 


29.4 


12.38 


1876 


1,283,827,500 


49,033,364 


475,491,210 


37-0 


26.1 


9.69 


1877 


1,342,558,000 


50,369,113 


480,643,400 


35-8 


26.6 


9-54 


1878 


1,388,218,750 


51,585,000 


441,153,405 


31.8 


26.9 


8.55 


1879 


1,547.901,790 


53,085,450 


580,486,217 


37.5 


29.2 


10.93 


1880 


1.717,434,543 


62,317,842 


679,714,499 


39-6 


27.6 


10.91 


1881 


1,194,916,000 


64,262,025 
525,346,204 


759,482,170 
5,883,068,121 


63.6 


18.6 


11.82 


Total. . . 


13,662,965,083 






Annual 














Average . 


. 1,242,087,735 


47,758,746 


534,824,375 


4>i 


26 


11.20 



Crop for 1883, estimated, 1,637,790,000 bushels, being the largest on record, ex- 
cept 1880. 

In 1849 three-tenths of the corn crop was grown in the 
Atlantic States, in 1879 ^^^ ^ little over one-tenth. Thus fast has 
the corn area marched westward and northward. We say north- 
ward, for in 1849 t^^ Southern States produced fifty-nine per 
cent, of the crop. By 1859, ^^^ Northern States had exchanged 
positions with the South. For several years the average product 
per capita has been over thirty bushels, and there has been a 
surplus for export averaging about six per cent, of the total 
product. The total export of corn and corn-meal for 188 1 was 



140 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

93,650,000 bushels, valued at ;^5 1,973,000, out of a total product 
of 1,194,916,000 bushels, valued at ;^ 7 59,483,000. 

WHEAT. — The development of wheat culture has been almost 
as wonderful as that of corn, but it has been encouraged much 
more than corn by a foreign demand. The value of wheat turns 
on the combined production of Europe, Asia, Australia and Amer- 
ica. Three to four-tenths of our wheat goes abroad in years 
of European scarcity, the chief market being England and other 
mahuficturing countries of Europe. Russia was for a long time 
a leading competitor of America in the wheat markets of Europe, 
but under a determined English policy India and Australia have 
become formidable rivals. The wheat of neither of these coun- 
tries is, however, comparable in quality with that of America 
and Russia. 

Wheat, like corn, is grown in all the States and Territories, 
but it also has its favorite areas. The New England States grow 
barely enougli for a three weeks' supply of their population. 
The Middle States grow about seven-tenths of what they con- 
sume, and so do the Southern States. The States bordering 
on the Ohio, those lying in the valley of the Missouri, and the 
Pacific States, are the true wheat areas of the country. 

The average wheat acreage of the country for eleven years, 
beginning with 1 87 1, has been 28,052,480 acres, as against 47,- 
758,746 for corn. For the same years the average wheat crop 
has been 342,224,776 bushels, valued at ;^359,654,528. The 
average price per bushel has been ;^ 1.05. 1, the average yield per 
acre 12.2 bushels, and the average yield per acre in dollars 
$12.S2. The largest crop on record was that of 1 880, 498,549,- 
868 bushels. The crop of 1883 was 426,000,000 bushels. 

The average amount of wheat consumed in a year by one of 
our inhabitants is 4^ bushels, or a full barrel of flower. It 
therefore takes 233,000,000 bushels to supply our 50,000,000 
people for a year, to which must be added 50,000,000 bushels 
for seed. The largest export of wheat ever made in one year 
was in 1880, 186,321,214 bushels, but the average export for the 
last five years has been 145,274.678 bushels, valued at ;^i87,- 
000,000 yearly. The export of wheat contains a lesson on the 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. • 141 

value of agriculture to a nation which ought to be learned by- 
heart and never forgotten. For years before the civil war wheat 
exports were only nominal. The country depended largely on 
its cotton exports to pay for its imports. The war cut that 
source of pay off entirely. Yet the situation was such that our 
imports had to be greatly increased. It was a ruinous business 
unless something should arise to fill the place of cotton and meet 
the necessarily heavy imports. Wheat came up to fill the bill, 
for wheat was gold. During those four years of exhaustion at 
home, and with hundreds of thousands of producers in the ranks 
of consumers, the average annual export of wheat was 50,- 
000,000 bushels. For the subsequent five years the annual 
export averaged only 20,000,000 bushels. This industry thus 
stepped timely into the breach and proved a resource in emer- 
gency Vvhich gladdened the heart of the nation. 

OATS AND OTHER GRAINS.— Ih^ oats areas of the 
country are less extended than wheat, and lie within the wheat 
areas. The average acreage for eleven years has been 12,272,- 
309 acres a year, with an annual average of 339,227,342 bushels, 
valued at ;^ 122,459,823, the average per acre being 27.6 bushels, 
or ;^9.98, at an average of 36.1 cents per bushel. It is not a 
favorite grain, except as its planting gives opportunity for rota- 
tion of crops, though in seasons 01 scarcity ic comes into 
prominence as a substitute for corn. 

Barley areas are confined chiefly to the northern tiers of States 
and to the Pacific coast. The average acreage for eleven years 
has been 1,635.953 acres a year, with an annual product of 
36,097,982 bushels, valued at ;^26,4I4,823. ' The annual crop 
falls behind the demand some 6,000,000 bushels. Though the 
acreage has increased as fast in proportion as that of wheat, the 
supply has never caught up with the demand occasioned by 
increased manufacture of beer. 

Rye areas are general, but it is chiefly grown in Pennsylvania, 
New York, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. The average acreage 
per year for eleven years has been 1,402,835, with an annual 
average product of 19,489,275 bushels, valued at $14,066,430. 
The average price per bushel for the same time has been 72.2 
cents and the yield per acre 13.9 bushels. 



142 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The chief buckwheat areas are in New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, though it is grown all over the country to the extent of 
10,000,000 bushels a year. 

These make what are known as the cereal products of the 
country. We now group them for the last four censuses as the 
best means of showing, at a glance our advance in their pro- 
duction. The fifdi column is added as a matter of curiosity. 
It is the estimate of the Department of Agriculture for the 
crops of 1882, which was satisfactorily close. 

Census. Com. Wheat. Oats. Barley. Rye, Buckwheat. 

\ 18-0 5r)2,(; 71,104 100,405,944 146,^84,179 5,167,015 14,183,813 8,9:6,912 

1S60 8^0,792,742 173,104,9=4 172,643,1^5 13,0=5,858 2i,ioi,-8o 17,571,818 

107-^ 760,944,549 207,743,626 282,107,137 29,761,3 5 i6,'^io.7;5 9,821,721 

I080 i,754,bOi,535 459.479.505 407.'^58,999 44,113,495 19,831,595 11,817,327 

Est. D.p. A-. for 

1882 1,625,000,000 510,000,000 ^^70,000,000 45,000,000 20,000,000 12,000,000 

Thus in i860 the total cereal product of the country* was, in 
round numbers, 1,230,000,000 bushels; in 1880 2,700,000,000 
bushels, an increase of over 100 per cent, in twenty years. Dur- 
ing the same time the value of farms increased from ;^6,000,- 
000,000 to ;^ 1 0,000,000,000. 

'*HAY. — This humbler crop than golden wheat or corn is the 
most valuable in the country. By this we do not mean that the 
quantity actually cut and housed is more valuable than the corn 
product, but that this quantity taken in connection with grass 
used for pasture, upon which depends an overwhelming propor- 
tion of the growth in flesh of all food and draught animals, be- 
comes by far the most valuable. Yet even hay proper ranks, of 
late years, next to corn in value, and as an agricultural product it 
has kept pace with the growth of others. The hay areas are 
general, but the largest crops are in the corn and wheat sections 
where rotation in culture has become necessary. The average 
acreage of hay for eleven years has been 24,392,660 . acres ; 
average product per year, 29,800,281 tons ; average annual value, 
;|^335,2i2,o62 ; average value per ton, $1 1.25 ; average yield per 
acre, 1.22 tons; average value per acre, ;^ 13.74. Yield as given 
in census of 1880, 35,205,712 tons. 

POTATOES. — Though a native vegetable and of almost as 
much importance, as a food product, as wheat or corn, and 
though its areas are general, the potato crop is the least certain 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. I43 

of all, and its culture is hardly beyond mere guesswork. The 
yearly average acreage for eleven years has been 1,608,974 
acres, yielding 135,491,019 bushels, valued at ;^76,745,679. The 
value per bushel has been 56.1 cents; the yield per acre, 84.2 
bushels ; the value per acre, ^^47.08. Though the value per 
bushel has steadily risen from 59 cents in 1 87 1 to 91 cents in 
1 88 1, the yield per acre has shown no corresponding increase, 
while the value per acre has decreased from ^58 to ^^48. The 
acreage for 1881 was 2,041,670 acres, as against 1,220,912 acres 
for 1 87 1, while the yield for 1 88 1 (it was a disastrous potato year 
and we had to import from Canada, Ireland and Scotland) was 
only 109,145,494 bushels, as against 120,461,100 bushels for 
1871. 

RICE. — This is a suTD-tropical plant, and its culture depends 
on great quantities of moisture. Indeed, it is hardly a possible 
crop beyond the line of lands which can be overflowed, of which 
there is an abundance on the Atlaintic and Gulf coasts, and along 
the Mississippi and other streams w"hich empty sluggishly into 
the Gulf It was early introduced into Virginia and the Caro- 
linas, and in 1840 the total crop was 80,841,000 pounds. Im- 
proved cultivation gave in 1850 a crop of 215,312,710 pounds, 
and in i860, 187,167,032 pounds. During the civil war the 
cultivation was greatly neglected, and in 1870 it had only risen 
to 73,635,021 pounds, and in 1879 to 110,131,373 pounds. In 
i860 rice was an export to the extent of ;^ 2, 500,000. At present 
the home supply does riot meet the demand. 

SUGAR-CANE. — The profitable sugar-cane area of the 
country is, thus far, limited to the region about the lower waters 
of the Mississippi, and even there it is planted annually. In the 
West Indies it is a perennial plant. Its growth has not kept 
pace with that of other agricultural products, arid, as we shall 
see, the United States ranks very low in the list of sugar-pro- 
ducing nations. It is quite certain that profitable cane-areas 
exist outside of those found in Louisiana, for instance, in all the 
Gulf States, and it is not improbable that we shall ere long, with 
better adaptation of labor, employment of improved machinery, 
and closer attention to the science of culture, take higher rank 



144 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 

as a sugar-producing country. We are the largest sugar and 
molasses consumers in the world, in proportion to our popula- 
tion, and have always been willing to pay dearly for these prime 
articles. 

The sugar product of the country has never exceeded 13 per 
cent, of the amount consumed, nor the molasses product 21 per 
cent. At this time we are importing an annual average of 
^80,000,000 worth of sugar and molasses, and paying thereon 
a duty nearly equal to half that amount. This condition of 
affairs is directly encouraging to fresh development of the in- 
dustry. 

Louisiana, which grows 95 per cent, of our sugar product, 
raised 30.000 hogsheads in 1823. The amount fluctuated greatly 
each year since, but showed, on the whole, an increase up to 
1853, when the crop was 449,324 hogsheads. There was then 
a general decline to an annual average of some 250,000 hogs- 
heads, till the great crop of 1 86 1 gave 459,410 hogsheads. 
Since then the falling off has been to an average scarcely in 
excess of 100,000 hogsheads annually. The crop of 1879 
(census crop) was 178,872 hogsheads and 16,573,273 gallons of 
molasses, grown from 227,776 acres. 

Our methods of sugar culture have been such as to keep the 
product down to very low figures. It has never raised the price 
of sugar lands to a higher average than ;^20 to ;^25 per acre, nor 
the yield per acre to over 2,000 pounds for any long term of 
years. The average in the West Indies runs from 3,000 to 
5,000 pounds per acre, and it has been quoted as high as 7,000 
pounds in the East Indies. Even after the cane is harvested in 
this country, it is estimated that unskillful handling results in a 
loss of 40 per cent, of the saccharine matter. With perfect 
farming appliances and good agricultural methods, with a divi- 
sion of the unwieldy sugar estates into smaller farms, and 
better protection against overflows, it is thought that every acre 
of sugar land can be made to yield 60,000 pounds of cane, 
which would give 5.000 pounds of sugar and 3,500 pounds of 
molasses, the former being worth 8 cents per pound and the 
latter 4 cents per pound. Here is a product equal to ;^540 per 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. I45 

acre, which, less $200 per acre for culture, leaves a net profit of 
$S40. Surely this is an invitation to investment and improved 
methods of industry which cannot long escape proverbial 
American enterprise, and must change the fact that our annual 
sugar product does not rank by 6^ per cent, as high as in 
i860. 

Much thought has lately been given to the growth of Sorghum, 
which is hardier than sugar-cane and susceptible of cultivation 
in our highest latitudes. Experiments have led, thus far, to the 
establishment of three factories which have succeeded in re- 
ducing the juices of this cane to a fine gradp of sugar, at a profit. 
Many suppose that a supply equal to the demand can be reached, 
ere long, by this culture. The areas of Sorghum cane-growing 
are gradually enlarging, but the date of tedious and costly ex- 
periment with it has not yet passed. A more seductive enterprise 
is that of beet sugar culture. In this line the experiments of other 
nations, as Germany, France, Russia, Belgium and Holland, have 
resulted in success and answer as encouragements. France sup- 
plies her own demand, by producing annually a crop equal to 
500,000 tons of beet sugar. One factory in California has been 
making beet sugar for three years at a profit. Another in Maine 
made over a million pounds a year for three years, but had to 
suspend because" the farmers were not sufficiently skilled in 
raising the roots, though it was found that an average of ten tons 
per acre could be reached, worth $^ to $6 per ton. 

Within a comparatively short period. Continental Europe has 
carried the beet sugar production up to and beyond a supply, 
and an excess of 95,000 tons is computed for 1884. Even 
Russia is said to raise within 15,000 tons of her own supply. 

In addition to our home supply and that derived from the 
West Indies and Sandwich Islands, most of the latter going into 
the Pacific States, we imported of this European beet sugar in 
1880,2,353 tons; in 188 1, 5,941 tons; in 1882, 7,204 tons; and in 
1883, 45,889 tons. Here are figures which show a rapid growth 
of trade in this product, much to our detriment. It is impossible 
to tell what particular line of sugar product will be the suc- 
cessful one in the future. All are promising, all profitable. 
10 



146 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

That one will soon be hit upon and pursued with our charac- 
teristic energy, we feel sure. It cannot be that America shall 
long lag in this respect. It would be in the nature of a reproach 
if, with a resource of land and climate for this industry equal to 
any other country, her energy should finally fail in its grasp. 

COTTON. — Cotton seed was first planted at Jamestown in 
162 1, and the " cotton wool " of the colonial garden was long a 
matter of curiosity and discussion here and in England. In an 
experimental way its culture extended at first northward rather 
than southward. Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware and Penn- 
sylvania all tried the growing of it, and in 1776 it was said that 
the crop secured in favorable places around Philadelphia was 
equal to the demand; which, of course, was not saying much, as 
wool was the chief article of clothing. 

Its trial in the Carolinas and Georgia in ' 1733-34, and in 
Louisiana in 1742, directed attention to it as a possible Southern 
staple, valuable alike as an article of clothing at home and as a 
leading export. It was not only climatically at home there, but 
the soil was then virgin, and the labor supposed to be of a kind 
best fitted for its culture, though subsequent facts have led to 
another conclusion. 

Charleston exported several bags of cotton in 1747. In 1770 
three bales were exported from New York, four from Virginia 
and Maryland, and three barrels from North Carolina. The 
crop of 1 79 1 was estimated at 2,000,000 pounds, and then it 
began to dawn that a staple was at our command which would 
in time largely affect commerce and the welfare of nations. In 
1795 the few American cotton mills imported for their use 
4,107,000 pounds, though our exports for that year were 6,276,- 
300 pounds. In 1801 the production was estimated at 48,000,000, 
21,000,000 of which were exported. In 1 8 10 the export rose to 
94.000,000 pounds, and in 1813, owing to the war, fell off to 
19,400,000 pounds. Then the situation was such as to prove 
that England virtually commanded our cotton market, for the 
price was only 12 cents a pound at home while there it ran from 
30 to 40 cents. This was further shown after the peace of 181 5, 
for in 1 82 1 our estimated crop was 180,000,000 pounds; 124,- 



I 




COTTON INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 147 

893,000 of which was exported. In 1825 the crop had grown 
to 255,000,000 pounds, or 580,000 bales. From that time till 
i860 the acreage and annual yield largely increased. The fig- 
ures for that year are 4,669,770 bales of 440* pounds each. 
This was the greatest crop of the country prior to the civil 
war. 

From the above it will be seen that cotton came into impor- 
tance with the invention of Whitney's Cotton Gin in 1793. Its 
production grew rapidly, and reached its climax, under the 
system of slave labor, between 1850 and i860, during which 
decade the average annual yield was in excess of 3,000.000 
bales. So much did it absorb agricultural attention that during 
that decade there was a marked decrease in the other three 
Southern staples, viz., sugar, rice and tobacco. 

From 1862 to '65 there are no records of cotton production, 
but in 1866, under free labor, the product was 2,193,987 bales. 
There was a steady annual increase of these figures till in 1878 
the crop was 4,811,265 bales, or larger than the greatest crop 
under the old system. Nor did the increase stop. If anything 
it has grown more rapidly, through subdivision of plantations, 
introduction of machinery and improved tillage, and closer 
alliance of labor with the crop output. 

In order to show the true cotton areas we give the acreage of 
three years beginning with 1880: 

^ 1882. 1881. 1880. 

■■ Acres. Acres. Acres. 

y;'g:"j::-'- 61,985 57,930 53,147 

North Cnrolina 1,050.543 1,061,155 973.537 

South Carolina 1,587,244 1,619,639 1,527,959 

Georgia 2,844,305 2,994,005 2,878,851 

Fl'TKla 260,402 263,032 257,875 

Alahnma 2,534,388 2,639,988 2,563,095 

Mississippi 2,233,884 2,351,228 2,260,796 

Loui>;iana.. 887,524 944,174 916,674 

Texas .2,810,113 2,676,298 2,478,o";4 

Arkansas 1,110,790 1,181,692 1,147,274 

Tennessee 815,760 84.0,990 816,495 

Other States and Ter. . . . 79,793 80,599 76,761 

Total 16,276,731 16,710,730 i5.95o»5i8 

* The commercial bale of cotton has varied in weight at different times. It is 
now computed at 490 gross pounds, or 460 pounds of net lint. 



148 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Prior to 1878 Louisiana ranked as the fourth cotton-growing 
State, and before 187 1 as the third. Now Texas is rapidly 
coming to the front In i860 Mississippi raised nearly half of 
all the cotton grown in the United States. 

Commercial figures place the later cotton product of the coun- 
try thus : 

1881. 1882. 1883. 

Bales 6,589,329 SA3SM5 6,959,000 

The average annual consumption of cotton in Europe is esti- 
mated at 6,000,000 bales. The United States of late years sup- 
plies on an average 56 per cent, of this consumption. Of the 
above England alone takes over 2,000,000 bales annually. The 
actual exportation in 1881 was 4,596,279 bales, or over 2,000,- 
000,000 pounds, and in 1883, 2,288,075,000 pounds. Running 
back a period of seventeen years we find that the average annual 
exportation has approximated 3,000,000 bales. And we take 
advantage of the figures which show this, to show also a com- 
parison of our cotton production for that period with a corre- 
sponding period before the civil war, the labor conditions being 
different: 

Movement, Exportation, Consumption. 

Seventeen years. Bales. Bales. Bales. 

1844-1861 51.330.790 39.913.005 11,422,799 

1865-1882 68,377,375 46,892,528 21,494,210 

The culture of cotton is arduous and painstaking and the crop 
results uncertain, owing to its sensibility to cald and moisture, 
to its frequently falling a prey to insects, and to lack of exact 
agricultural science. Its price is as fluctuating as the crop. 
The yield per acre runs from 100 to 250 pounds (the crop of 
1879 gave an average of 189 pounds of lint per acre), and it is 
hardly possible to grow and market it profitably under 9 cents 
a pound, taking the seasons as they run, and counting the aver- 
age yield per acre as low? as 150 pounds. The market price has 
for many years been such as to give a handsome profit on this 
figure. The total value of raw cotton exported for the past 
three years has been — 

1881. 1882. 1883. 

$247,695,746 $199,812,644 $247,328,721 

Showing that it is a most important addition to our commercial 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 149 

wealth, and a direct invitation to the highest grade of agricul- 
tural industry and enterprise. As things exist no other nation 
can compete with us in its production. The weak spot in con- 
nection with its growth is that considerably more than half of 
our annual product is sent abroad at a dead loss of a sum equal 
to the cost of freight and handling. When we agree to save 
this loss by manufacturing the fibre on the spot of production, 
and serving the world with fabrics rather than raw material, we 
will better appreciate the adage that '* cotton is king." 

Cotton is not a novelty. In India and many islands of the 
Indian Ocean it has been cultivated, spun and woven from time 
immemorial. The Spaniards found it in Mexico at the 'time of 
their conquest. Pliny speaks of it as in use among the Egyptians 
in his time. The Chinese cultivated it as a garden plant at an 
early period, and in the thirteenth century spun and wove its 
filaments. The Saracens cultivated it in Spain and Sicily in the 
tenth century. Its common use in England dates from the in- 
ventions of Arkwright in 1769. 

The value of the product in manufacture is graded by the 
length, fineness and tenacity of its filament. The longest, finest 
and most valuable fibre in the world is known as Sea Island cotton, 
raised on the coasts of the Carol inas. All other American cot- 
tons are known as Uplands. They are not noted for length of 
fibre, but for fleeciness and elasticity they give to American- 
grown cotton first rank. Sea Island seed sown in Egypt does 
not produce its native length of fibre, though it is better for some 
kinds of thread, and for such special uses we import a certain 
quantity of it. South American cottons are harsh and irregular 
of fibre, and adapted only for coarse uses. India cotton ranks 
next to that of the United States in texture and adaptability. 
South African cotton and that of Borneo and China lack the 
silkiness and elasticity of fibre common to that grown in 
America. 

TOBACCO. — This native plant, of which the historian of Sir 
Walter Raleigh's colonial experiment says, " It hath a soothing 
and medicinal effect upon the system," became at an early period 
a Southern staple, and at one time was used to pay taxes, liquidate 



150 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

royal stipends, and perform the uses of currency. The tobacco 
areas of the country remained for a long time south of Mason 
and Dixon's line, and it was a favorite staple with old Southern 
planters, more because their labor was supposed to be suited to 
raising it, than because it found a natural home in either the soil 
or climate of the South. The Southern areas grow a tobacco 
peculiarly fitted for pipe smoking and for the manufacture of 
chewing plug. They have gradually expanded till they not only 
embrace the whole Southern States, but, as the census reports 
of 1880 show, all the Northern States as well. 

Almost from the settlement of the country tobacco has been 
an article of export, running from ;^25,ooo,ooo to ;^30,coo,ooo 
for the last few years. Virginia for a long time headed the list 
of tobacco-producing States, followed by North Carolina. I'hese 
in turn gave way to Kentucky and Tennessee. In later years 
the areas shifted rapidly northward, and Pennsylvania, which 
ranked twelfth as a tobacco-growing State in 1 870, ranked third in 
1880. Ohio passed from fifth to fourth; Maryland from fifth to 
seventh ; Tennessee from third to fifth ; Missouri from seventh 
to ninth. 

The culture of the plant in northern areas, which is com- 
paratively modern, has been encouraged by the introduction of 
careful tillage, and by the discovery that their growth is the best 
fitted for domestic consumption. 

Crop of 1840.* 1850. i860. 1870. 1880. 

219,163,319 lbs. 199,752,646 lbs. 434,209,641 lbs. 262,735,341 lbs, 472,661,159 lbs. 

A grouping of leading tobacco States, the tobacco product 
therein for 1879, ^^^ value of the crop in the farmers* hands, the 
value per acre, and the cost of raising, are so briefly instructive, 
and so suggestive of the entire situation, that we take the liberty 
of using it as found arranged in Spofford's Treasury of Facts for 
1884. In consulting it let it be borne in mind that there was in 
1879 but little foreign demand for the peculiar leaf raised by 
Missouri, Maryland, Indiana, Illinois, and those States in which 
the value per acre and per ICX) pounds runs the lowest. The 

* These are census figures. As a general thing they relate, as to crops, to the 
previous year. Thus, the 1880 returns give the crop of 1879. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 151 

other States were more fortunate in finding a home demand for 
their crop. 

Cost of 

Value per Value per raising 

Stales. Acres. Pounds. Value. acre. ico lbs. loo lbs. 

Kentucky 226,120 171,120,784 ^11,089,782 ^49.04 ^6.48 ^4.90 



Virginia 140,791 79,988,868 5,406,744 38.40 6, 

Pennsylvania ,,. 27,566 36,943,272 4,612,894 i^7 -33 12 

Ohio 34.676 34.735,235 2,653,234 76.51 7 

Tennessee 41.532 29,365,052 1,538,757 37-04 5 

North Carolina 57,208 26,986,213 3,805,089 66.51 14 

Maryland 38,174 26,082,147 1,825,750 4782 7 

Connecticut 8,666 14,044,652 1,929,982 222.70 13 

Missouri 15,521 12,015,657 600,256 38.67 4 

Wisconsin 8,810 10,608,423 899,118 102.05 8 

Indiana ii,955 8,872,842 443,642 3710 5 

New York 4,9B7 6,481,431 720,868 146.01 11 

Massachusetts 3.358 5,369,436 _ 683,575 203.56 12 

Illinois..... 5,612 3,935,825 202,745 36.12 5 

West Virginia 4.071 2,29^,146 i7o,374 4185 7 

Arkansas 2,064 970,220 4i,547 20.12 4 



75 5-33 

48 8.42 

63 5-91 

24 4-50 

10 9-33 

00 5.91 

74 9-85 

99 3-58 

47 4-95 

00 3.60 

12 8.00 

73 9-72 

15 417 

42 6.00 

28 2.70 



BUTTER, CHEESE AND MILK.—Th^s^ useful and valu- 
able products of the farm have kept pace with agricultural develop- 
ment in other respects, though the cheese production has suf- 
fered a notable reduction, owing to the fact that milk has, of it- 
self, a greater commercial value than formerly. The Northern 
States are in a long lead in these products, and New York heads 
the list. Their increase and decrease are best shown by the 
following table : 

1850. i860. 1870. i8§o. 

Butter, lbs 313,345,306 459,681,372 514,092,683 777,250,287 

Cheese, lbs 105,535,893 103,663,927 53,492,153 27,272,489 

Milk (sold) gallons 235,500,599 53<^»i29,75S 

The above figures are those which relate only to farm pro- 
ducts of butter and cheese. Of late years their manufacture 
has been largely carried on by factories, of which there are some 
4,000 in the United States, making yearly 175,000,000 pounds of 
cheese, valued at ;^ 14,000,000, and 17,000,000 pounds of butter, 
valued at ;^4,ooo,ooo. In 1882 our export of cheese amounted to 
^14,000,000, and in 1883 to ;^ 1 1 ,000,000. For the same years 
our butter export was ^2,864,000 and ;^2, 290,000, respectively. 

WOOL. — While there has always been a certain wool pro- 
duction in the United States, wool-growing in a commercial 
sense does not date very far back. Indeed, prior to 1840, a raw 
wool product may have been considered as an incident to sheep- 
raising for food or simply domestic purposes. At any rate it 
was not a rapidly increasing product, and did not keep pace with 



152 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

development in other agricultural industries. The drift of the 
older States was backward in respect to wool production, and 
the new States had not yet filled their place. As soon as they 
began to do this the production showed a wonderfully rapid 
growth. While Ohio long held the lead as a wool-growing 
State, it was in California that the problem of sheep-rais- 
ing and feeding for the sake of the clip first met with practical 
solution. There the flockage rose from almost nothing in 1850 
to over four millions in 1880. 

For a long time our native-grown wools did not take high rank 
in the manufactures. But the introduction of improved breeds of 
sheep, greater attention to their food and food-ranges, and larger 
knowledge of their habits, health, and fleece-producing qualities 
have enabled the American wool-grower to produce an article 
which, after close analysis, and often comparison with foreign 
wools, is pronounced as fine as any that is grown elsewhere. 
Wool-growing in its highest sense is now a pronounced industry, 
and one that is bound to keep abreast of the other great industries. 
It, like sugar, has a home-field which is as yet unfilled except by 
heavy annual importations. The amount and rate of growth 
appears thus : 

1850. i860. 1870. 1880. 

52,516,959 lbs. 60,264,913 lbs. 100,102,387 lbs. 155,681,751 lbs. 

Ranch sheep and wool of slaughtered sheep estimated.. . 85,000,000 
Total for 1880 240,681,751 

LIVE-STOCK. — Passing from the great staples to the living 
products of the farm, we have as great occasion for surprise and 
congratulation at the evidences of substantial progress. In the 
rearing of domestic animals this country takes a decided lead. 
Every condition favors numerous, strong and prolific breeds of 
stock. Encouragement to surround the homestead and dot the 
farm with draught animals is found in the needs of active and 
growing agriculture, while the redundancy of grain, grass, hay 
and fodder assures food for rearing and fattening a supply for 
our home markets and those abroad. It is significant that 
American beef and pork are as much depended upon for food in 
foreign markets as American corn and wheat. . 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. I53 

An idea of the increase in live-stock may be gleaned from the 
following, which gives the number on farms only : . 

i860. 1870. 1880. 

Horses 6,249,174 7.i45»37o 10,357,488 

, Mules and Asses 1,151,148 1,125,415 1,812,808 

Oxen 2,254,911 1,319,271 993,841 

Milch Cows 8,581,735 8,935,332 12,443,120 

Other Cattle 14,779,373 13.566,605 22,488,550 

Sheep 22,471,275 28,477,951 42,192,074 

Swine 33,512,867, 25,134,569 4 7,681.700 

89,000,483 85,704,513 137,969.581 

Value 151,089,329,915 111,525,276,457* ^1,500,464,609 

It is estimated that the number of cattle not on farms will 
increase the above figures at least fifteen per cent.f 

FARMS. — In the United States a farm means more than in 
any other country. It is in general a man's own acres, and is 
thus a direct contributor to thrift and independence of character. 
Farm occupancy is not, as a rule, humble tenancy, but proud 
ownership. In whatever section of our country this rule holds 
to the greatest extent there the yeomanry are best off in every 
respect. Even foreigners recognize this characteristic, and the 
ambitious among them seek a fee simple in the productive 
prairies of the West in preference to a location in sections where 
tenantry customs prevail. Out of our four million farms fully 
three-fourths are occupied by actual owners. The farms of the 
remaining fourth lie largely in the Southern States, where 
freedmen, not yet able to own or stock the land, but anxious 
to try the experiment of working on the shares, take holdings 
under contracts of various kinds. 

No. of farms. Occupied by owner. Rented for money. Rented on shares. 

4,008,907 2,984,306 322,357 702,244 

* In all comparisons of values between 1870 and 1880, it mu-st be remembered 
that in the former year gold was at a premium of 25.3 per cent. 

f These figures shift so rapidly that it is almost impossible to keep up with them. 
Those for 1883, witli those for 1884, estimated, have been published by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, and are as follows : 

1883. 1884. Value for 1884. 

Horses 10,838,111 11,169,283 $ 833,734,400 

Mules 1,871,079 1,914, i«6 161,214.976 

Milch cows 13,125,685 13,501,206 423,486,649 

Oxen and other cattle..28,046,077 29,046,101 683,329,054 

Sheep 49,237,291 50,626,626 119,902,706 

Hogs 43,279,086 44,200,893 246,301,139 

^2,467,868,^24 



154 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Another feature of our farms is their size. They are divided 
in the census returns into seven classes, according to the num- 
ber of acres. The two classes, containing from 50 to lOO 
acres and from 100 to 500 acres, embrace more than half the 
whole number of farms. With our lands thus finely subdivided 
there is given opportunity for actual ownership, higher grade of 
farmincr, and better reahzation of the blessin^-s which flow from 
agricultural industry. The largest farms are in the Southern 
States, if we except the ranches of the Pacific States and some 
of the Territories, which can scarcely be called farms. New 
York has only 281 farms of over 1,000 acres; Georgia has 

3.491. 

The improved land comprised in farms has increased as fol- 
lows : 

1850. i860. 1870. 1880. 

113,000,000 Acres 163,000,000 189,000,000 284,771,042 

But the improved land is not by any means all of the area 
embraced in farms, as the following shows : 

1870. 1880. 

Improved land 189,000,000 Acres 284,771,042 

Unimproved land 218,735,041 251,310,793 

Total farm areas 407,735,041 536,081,835 

The total number of farms in 1880 being 4,008,907, the aver- 
age size of each farm would be 134 acres, as against 153 in 1870, 
199 in i860, and 203 in 1850. 

The increase in the value of farms has been as follows: 

1850. i860. 1870. 1880. 

$3,271,575,426 ;g6,645,045,oo7 $9,262,803,861 $10,197,096,776 

To work our farms requires implements and machinery to the 
value of ;^4o6,520,055. Repairs and fencing cost, in 1879, $77r 
763,473, and fertilizers ;^28,586,397. For the same year the 
total of farm products footed the magnificent sum of ;^2,2I3,- 
402,564. 

And so we might turn over these bewildering figures for 
hours, each time getting new ideas of the immense importance 
of our agricultural interests and of the wonderful growth of the 
industry. As we have seen, it occupies the direct attention of 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. I55 

nearly eight millions of our people. Indirectly it concerns the 
life and comfort of all at home and countless millions abroad. 
There is no wealth so substantial as that of agriculture, no re- 
source so far-reaching. When we point to our growth from 
thirteen colonies to thirty-eight States, from a little fringe of At- 
lantic territory to a magnificent domain of 3,000,000 square 
miles, and from a population of 3,000,000 to one of 50,000,000 
people, we do but indirectly exult over the triumphs of our 
agricultural system and exalt the quiet power that, more than 
any other, has made us stable, rich and independent. In learn- 
ing of our institutions, and in striving to rule them well and to 
perpetuate them continuously, there is nothing of greater con- 
cern than farm industry, coupled with untrammelled ownership 
of the land. Says Thomas H. Benton : " Tenantry is unfavor- 
able to freedom. The tenant has, in fact, no country, no hearth, 
no domestic altar, no householcj god. The freeholder, on the 
contrary, is the natural supporter of a free government, and it 
should be the policy of republics to multiply their freeholders, 
as it is the policy of monarchies to multiply their tenants." 

MANUFACTURES.—^^ pass to a more bustling, less con- 
servative, and equally interesting branch of industry. In it 
we meet with the same evidences of growth as in agriculture, 
and the same compliments to our thrift and genius. That we 
are not yet as independent in manufacture as in agriculture is be- 
cause manufacture necessarily follows, and is dependent on, a 
certain amount of prior development of soil, acquisition of 
wealth, and growth of population. It is the secondary outcrop 
of the genius of an enterprising and industrious people. The 
time never existed, since we cut our colonial apron-strings, when 
we did not manufacture something, and our manufacturing possi- 
bilities made vivid the dreams of our earliest statesmen and capi- 
talists. Our immense water power was visible, before the age 
of coal and steam. So was our forest wealth. What was be- 
neath the soil, and what its surface could yield, were such as 
the imagination delighted to sketch, but which, in the light of 
revelation, no imagination, however glowing, could sufficiently 
outline and color. 



156 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

We have seen that our government has ever had a kindly- 
leaning toward its agricultural interests, believing that land 
ownership and a free and independent yeomanry were bulwarks 
of the republic. It has not always been so kindly disposed 
toward its manufactures, for the reason that these, in their estab- 
lishment and encouragement, required a greater amount of 
legislation, and such legislation, always intricate and clashing, 
could never be kept free from the ambitions of statesmen and 
the bias of parties. Our earliest laws, looking to future manu- 
facturing possibilities, were kind. But there came a relapse in 
fostering legislation, and such manufactures as took hold did so 
in defiance of the competition which came from abroad. No 
doctrine of home development prevailed till "the American sys- 
tem," as formulated by Henry Clay, directed the attention of 
our people to the necessity of cultivating an independent manu- 
facturing polity, if ever they were to attain that pre-eminence 
which they were entitled to by reason of native resource and 
advantage of position and institution. That was the dawn of 
hopefulness for American manufactures, and the beginning of a 
philosophy respecting them which has been amplified amid 
much vicissitude, until it has come to be well understood by 
inquisitive and conservative capital, and will, ere long, be equally 
well understood by the interested artisan and laborer. 

With whatever pride we recount our manufacturing successes, 
they are as yet only begun. The splendid sweep of our popula- 
tion and empire through the prairies, over the Mississippi, and 
into Texas and the Northwest, has been agricultural. It is 
being followed apace by a grander manufacturing sweep, whose 
evidences are already in the midst of the prairies. It is even 
broader than the first, and freer, for there is no line through its 
middle, splitting its capital and labor into sectional parts, and 
setting up two presiding geniuses to glare furiously at each 
other. Georgia evokes a spinning jenny, Missouri a furnace, 
and the Red River country a grist mill, all in keeping with the 
spirit that dominates true manufacturing progress, viz., the con- 
version of grosser into finer materials on the spot of their pro- 
duction. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 157 

Our growth in manufactures since 1850 is thus shown: 

Establish- Caoital Hands Em- Yearly Value of Value of 

ments. ^ ' ployed. Wages. Materials. Products 

1850 123,025 ;j533»245.35i 957.059 1236,755,464 $555,123,822 $1,019,106,616 

i860 143,433 1,009,855,715 1,311,246 378,878,966 1,031,605,092 1,885,861,675 

1870 252,148 2,118,208,769 1,939,368 775,584.343 2,488,427,242 4,232,325,442 

1880 253,852 , 2,790,272,606 2,732,595 947,953,795 3,396,823,549 5, 369.579. i9i 

Not only is this a wonderful growth, but the art of manufac- 
turing is getting to be better understood, for the annual value of 
the products rises in a much greater proportion than the number 
of establishments. The capital invested must therefore go into 
larger and better appointed factories, with higher classed pro- 
ducts and surer results. Adding to the above yearly wages and 
cost of material six per cent, on the capital employed and ten 
per cent, for wear and tear, and subtracting the sum from the 
total value of products, there remains a profit of ;^i,568,ooo,cx)0, 
or $^0 per head of our population. 

New York stands at the head of the manufacturing States (as 
the tables under each State will show), followed in order by 
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois and Ohio, as to value of 
products. Textile and higher grade manufacturing is, as yet, 
largely confined to the Atlantic States. The Western States 
have advanced very rapidly in milling and the manufacture of 
farming implements and machinery. Some of the Southern 
States, as Georgia, are making satisfactory progress in textile 
manufactures. 

Under the head of " Manufactures and Mechanical and Min- 
ing Industries" in the Census of 1880 are enumerated 332 sepa- 
rate branches or industries, with the number of establishments 
under each, the capital and hands employed, the wages paid, the 
cost of materials used and the value of the products for that 
year. It would be impossible to mention them all here, nor is 
it necessary. Many of them are yet unimportant. Many more 
are not diversified and show special rather than general growth. 
The classification of a few in the order of their notation in the 
Census will serve to illustrate our progress, show tendencies of 
capital, labor and genius, and sufficiently magnify the importance 
of the subject in the minds of those who seek to learn of our 
country that they may the better govern it. 



158 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Many of them began in a primitive way with the birth of the 
country. Wool and flax were spun and woven by our earliest 
forefathers in their kitchens and cellars. The first water frame 
for spinning cotton was erected in Rhode Island in 1790. Many 
are new, necessities of later years, outcrops of fresh resources, 
results of growthy enterprise and a daily quickening genius. 
Notable among these is the manufacture of agricultural imple- 
ments, which tells the story of our conquest of outlying millions 
of acres in the absence of what in Europe would be called 
" work people," but here " farm help ; " or, if obtainable, only at 
figures which stimulated invention and forced machine substitutes. 
The figures appear thus: 1850, value of product, ;^6,842,6ii ; 
1860,^17,487,960; 1870, ;$5 2,066,875 ; 1880,^68,640,486. 

The total number of establishments in 1880 was 1,943, with a 
capital of ;$62, 109,668, using materials to the value of ;^3I,53I,- 
I70, and employing 39.580 hands at a cost for wages of ;^i 5,3 59,- 
610. Here we see almost the beginning of this industry, tJie be- 
ginning so far as it passed from the domain of the wheelwright 
and into the realm of factory output of the great labor-saving 
inventions. A closer view of the growthiness of the industry 
may be had by comparing the number of a few of the leading 
implements made in 1870 and 1880, thus: 



(5§ 



1870 21,790 

1880 68,691 



•^2 



88,740 9,^50 
318,057 127,997 



1,298,260 
2,480,724 



P rt -O.S 
162,317 



881,244 
1,244,264 



K 

3,566 
25,737 



o 

864,947 
1,326,123 



The manufacture of boots and shoes has had a growth in the 
United States which attests our inventive capacity and our 
wonderful adaptation of machinery and power to this desirable 
industry. The value of the products in i860 was ^91,889,298; 
in 1870, ;g 1 8 1, 644,090; in 1880, ;^ 166,050,354. Our boot and 
shoe machinery is the best in the world, and the product is re- 
garded with exceptional favor everywhere. 

In this nation of homes and home-owners it is pleasurable to 
note the growth of some of the industries which add to our 
comfort in this respect. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 159 

Sawed and 

Bricks and Carpenters' and t7.,^„u„vo rioco Planed 

rr^., -r> -ij 5 i. J rurniture. Olass. t u 

Tiles. Builders trade. - Lumber. 

1870.. $29,302,016 $132,901,432 $68,522,221 $19,235,862 $210,159,327 
1880.. 32,833,587 94,152,139 79.544,759 23,689,580 270,072,185 

The manufacture of carpets has had a surprising growth. In 
1850 the value of factory-made carpets, other than rag, was 
only ;^5,40i,234; in i860, $7 y^S7 ^^Z^ ', i" i^/o* $2i,7^i,S7Z\ 
and in 1880, ;^3 1,792,802. The product includes every known 
style and design, the machinery is as perfect as any in the world, 
and the industry has a future, under proper care, which will tell 
on other nations. It is as yet confined to seven States, Con- 
necticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, -New 
York and Pennsylvania, the product of Pennsylvania alone being 
;^i4,304,66o, or nearly one-half of the total. 

From the fact that this is a cotton-growing country, the 
manufacture of the staple has always been a matter of great 
importance. But England held so long a lead, that this manu- 
facture more than any other had to bear the brunt of her com- 
petition. Its existence at home has been a struggle whose 
severity has been sharpened by partisanship and intensified by 
the introduction of wild, unbusiness-like theories. Its present 
triumph is due rather to innate persistency than to a fostering 
polity. Cotton-raising was for sixty years the enemy of cotton 
manufacture on our soil. The spirit of raw material perpetually 
antagonized that of fabric. Soil, climate and labor were against 
factory and art. Nevertheless cotton manufacture got a hold 
and grew — grew more firmly, perhaps, if not so fast, amid vicis- 
situde. 

The manufacture now ranks among our most interesting, 
profitable and growthy. Next to iron and steel it engages more 
capital than any other, and it involves the finest machinery, best 
artisanship and closest commercial calculations. Its utility is 
such as to command the respect of conservative capital and 
shrewd labor everywhere. We are clearly over our pupilage in 
cotton manufacture. Two evidences only need be quoted. 
Our manufactures are forcing their way into foreign markets.* 

* By i860 our exports of cotton fabrics had grown to quite handsome proportions, 



160 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



We are fast learning that our fields of manufacture ought to be 
diversified and that the cheapest, if not the best, ought to be 
nearest those which produce the raw material. This reversal of 
the old situation is rapidly going on. In it there is assurance 
of ultimate and entire independency in the manufacture. It 
will be the first spectacle ever presented of cotton-fields giving. 
forth their lint in the form of woven bales and beautified prints, 
and of perfect accord between the hand that plants and picks, 
and the hand that spins and weaves. 

In 1850 the number of spindles in operation in the country 
was 3,633,693, and the value of the cotton product ;^65,50i,687. 
In i860 the spindles had increased to 5,235,727, and the value 
of the product to $115,681,774. In 1870 the spindles were 
7,132,415, and the value of the product ;$ 177,489,739. In 1880 
the spindles were 10,921,147, and the value of the product 
;^2io.95o.383. 

The number of establishments in 1880 was 1,005 J hands em- 
ployed, 185,472; capital, ;^ 2 1 9, 5 04,794; material used, 1,586,481 
bales; value of all material used, ;^ 11 3,765,537. Massachusetts 
runs 4,665,290 spindles, and produces a proportionate amount of 
the manufactured goods — or a third of the whole. She is fol- 
lowed in order by Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, 
Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia — the 
latter with 200,974 spindles. But these figures have been greatly 
augmented in the past four years in some of the Southern States. 
It is estimated that the cotton mills under contract since Jan. I, 
1884, in the South, will cost ^3,250,000, and add 100,000 
spindles to those already there. The dyeing and finishing of 
textile fabrics is an industry by itself which must keep pace with 



some $9,000,000. Their export ceased during the civil war, the factories being 
chiefly devoted to the production of woollen goods. They began again in 1873 
with $2,947,528, and by rather uneven progress rose to $13,571,387 in 1881, the 
year of largest export. In 1883 their value was $12,951,145. Thus the increase 
since 1873 hns been some 350 per cent. The export for 1883 was 34,063,292 
yards of colored cotton goods and 103,634,459 yards of uncolored cotton goods. 
The countries taking the largest amount were China, 30,442,846 yards; England, 
27,794,992 yards; and then in order Mexico, Africa, Columbia, Chi i and Brazil. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. IgJ 

their manufacture. It employed a capital (1880) of ^26,223,981, 
and yielded a product equal to ^32,297,420. 

Flouring and grist mill products foot up the wonderful total 
of ;$505,i85,7i2, as against ;^444,985,i43 in 1S70, and ;^248,' 
580,365 in i860. The number of establishments in 1880 was 
24,338, employing a capital of ;^i77,36i,878, and 58,367 hands, 
to whom were paid as wages ^17,422,316. The materials con- 
sumed were 304.775,737 bushels of wheat, valued at ;^3I5,394,- 
386, and 234,907,220 bifshels of other grain, valued at ^112,- 
372,071. In other words 59,612 run of stones and burrs con- 
verted daily 4,730,106 bushels of grain into flour and meal. 
The total product of flour and grist mills (^505,185,712) is the 
largest of any manufacture in the United States, though the 
capital employed is not. The manufacture has followed closely 
on the development of our agricultural areas, and many of the 
newer States equal, or exceed, the older agricultural States in 
the value of their annual product, though not in the number of 
establishments; which fact shows that the progress of the man- 
ufacture westward is attended by the erection of larger mills. 
Thus, Pennsylvania with 2,873 establishments and a product 
'■ equal to 1^41,522,662, is only on a par with Minnesota which has 
but 436 establishments and a product of ;^4i, 5 19,004. 

In hosiery and knit goods the country has created a manu- 
facture within the memory of man, and carried it to great per- 
fection. The product in 1850 was only ;^i,028, 102 ; in i860 it 
•was ;^7, 280,606 ; in 1870, ^18,411,564; and in 1880, ^29,167,- 
227. The capital employed was ;^I5, 579,591, in 359 establish- 
ments, running 28,885 hands, and consuming ^15,210,057 worth 
of material. 

The iron and steel industry of the country has ever been 
growthy, but of late years has assumed proportions which place 
us in advance of every country except Great Britain. It is easy 
to surmise that another decade will see us leading the world in 
the manufacture, for as yet we have only begun to tap our 
resources and test our capacities. We have, like England, a 
wonderful proximity of coal vein and ore bed. We have both 
covering vaster areas than hers, and in quantities which are prac- 
11 



1G2 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tically inexhaustible. Thus far our manufacture has been at the 
bidding of a home market. This market is in its infancy, con- 
sider what branch of the manufacture we may. The only great 
question involved is whether we can hold it for ourselves against 
the rivalry of other countries. That we ought to do so is some- 
thing about which Americans should not dispute. 

It is to be regretted that our space will not permit separate 
pursuit of the great branches of the iron industry. We should 
then find much that is interesting and educative respecting the 
beginning and growth of these branches, much that is instructive 
about the part a government can play in fostering industrial de- 
velopment, and much that touches our pride respecting internal 
resource and ability to maintain ourselves against the compe- 
tition of countries which had centuries the start of us and which 
employ a far cheaper labor than ours. One branch only need be 
mentioned as an illustration, and that is the manufacture of 
Bessemer steel rails for railroads. This industry had no exist- 
ence in this country prior to 1867. That year the product was 
2,550 tons. Their superiority over iron rails was so manifest 
that they began immediately to crowd iron rails off the track. 
They commanded a high price, so high, that the duty was no 
protection, and their importation was large. But by 1870 our 
capacity for their manufacture had so grown that the product of 
that year was 34,000 tons. In 1872 it was 94,070 tons; in 1877, 
432,169 tons. The growth was regular and startlingly rapid, 
notwithstanding these years of panic and depression. For the 
census year (1879) the production of Bessemer and open Hearth 
steel rails was 750,680 tons, valued at ;^37,892,070. In 1882 the 
total production was 1,460,920 tons, and in 1883 1,295,740 tons, 
the falling off being due to over-production. In 1882 the total 
product of steel rails in Great Britain was 1,235,785 tons. Thus 
in twelve years the United States started this important industry 
and pus4ied it so energetically as to surpass the greatest iron- 
producing country of the world. 

The total number of establishments engaged in making iron 
and steel, in 1880, was 1,005 i c)f these, 490 were blast furnaces, 
which turned out 3,781,021 tons of pig and other cast iron, valued 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 1(J3 

at ;^89,3I5,569; Ii8 were bloomeries, producing 72,557 tons of 
blooms, valued at. ;^3, 968,074 ; 324 were rolling mills, turning out 
2,353,248 tons of bar and other rolled iron, valued at ^136,798,- 
574; 36 were Bessemer and open Hearth steel works, turning 
out 983,039 tons of steel rails and other structural steel, valued 
at ;^55, 805,210; 37 v/ere crucible steel works, turning out 75,275 
tons of steel bars and blooms, valued at ;^ 10,670,25 8. 

The total iron and steel product for- that year, and of the 
1,005 establishments was — 

Capital. ■ Product in Tons. Value of Product. 

$230,971,884 7,265,140 $296,557,685 

The manufactures of iron and steel embraced the following : 

Iron bolts, etc io,o73>333 

doors and shutters 495,060 

forgings 6,492,028 

nails and spikes 5,629,240 

pipe 13,292,162 

railing '. 1,300,549 

architectural work 2,109,537 

Total iron and steel, and manufactures thereof $335»949>594 

Pennsylvania is the leading State in the production of iron 
and steel, her establishments numbering 366 of the 1,005, ^^^ ^er 
product equalling ;^ 145, 576,268 of the ;^296,5 57,685. 

One cannot help speaking with pride of the growth of our 
silk manufacture. It is so young as to be within the memory of 
all. It is an industry which owes its existence to the fostering 
spirit of the government, and is fighting its battle without the 
aid of home silk-growers and a raw material within easy reach 
of the factories, and this not because either soil or- climate is 
unkind. New Jersey leads in the manufacture, followed by New 
York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The total 
silk product for i860 was ^6,607,771 ; for 1870,^12,210,662; for 
1880, ;^34,5 19,723. In 1883 we consumed 2,800,000 pounds of 
raw silk, and produced 1^40,000,000 worth of goods, thus rank- 
ing third among the silk manufacturing countries of the world. 

American silks are woven chiefly by machinery, foreign silks 
by hand. This enables us to overcome to a great extent the 
difference in the price of labor, which is something marvellous in 
this industry. In one factory alone, at Cannabbis, Italy, there are 



]64 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

600 orphan children at work in the various spinning and winding 
departments, who receive nothing but clothing and food for their 
first four years of apprenticeship, and sixty cents a month for four 
years more. Employes who receive here from $^ to $6 per 
week receive abroad for the same kind of labor from 6 to 8 cents 
a day. This is the testimony of Mr. Herman Simon, of the 
AUentown, Pa., silk mill, who visits Europe every year for pur- 
poses of inspection. For ten years prior to 1 860 we imported 
;^27,6oo,cx)0 of silk manufactures a year. The average for the 
last ten years has been ^27,800,000, with 20,000,000 more people. 
The raw material is all imported. American silks are but very 
little higher in price than those from abroad, and, if anything, 
give better satisfaction in wearing, our climate forbidding the 
artificial weighting practiced so largely in other countries. 

A few of our other leading manufactures are here shown, 
without comment, the comparison afforded by the decades being 
sufficiently suggestive of growth and resource. 

1870. 1880. 

Woollens and Worsteds $155,405,358 $194,156,663 

Clothing (men's) 147,650,378 209,548,460 

Machinery 138,519,248 214,378,468 

Leather (tanned) 86,169,883 113,348,336 

Leather (curried) 54,192,017 7J»35i,297 

Tobacco 38,388,356 52,793,056 

Cigars 28,299,067 63,979,575 

Carriages and wagons 65,362,837 64,951,617 

Sugar and Molasses, refined 108,941,911 155,484,915 

Liquors, distilled, malt, and vinous. . , 94,133,014 144,290,641 

Paper 48,676,935 55,109,914 

Printing and Publishing 32,674,037 90,789,341 

Slaughtering and meat packing (not 

retail), 303*562,413 

To carry on our manufactures in 1870, it required a combined 
steam and water-power equal to 2,346,142 horse-power. The 
amount required in 1880 was 3,410,837 horse-power, an increase 
of 45.38 per cent. The proportion of each power was (1870), 
water, 48.18 per cent, steam 51.82 per cent. In 1880 the pro- 
portion was, water 35.93 per cent, steam 64.07 per cent Thus, 
steam is fast supplying the place of water as a power, or rather 
is developing in a larger ratio. 

MINING AND MINERALS.— As to the precious and lead- 
ing useful minerals the United States justly ranks as the first 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. Ig5 

country in the world. Her resources, in this respect, cover a 
wide range of mineral substances and highly diversified mineral 
structures. While this is true, it must be said that the develop- 
ment of many of our mineral deposits is yet in its infancy. No 
one can compute our wealth of iron ore nor our deposits of coal. 
Every now and then fresh discoveries of some valuable mineral 
substance is announced. Mining, like agriculture, has been 
roughly and carelessly carried on. Except in some of the deep 
silver and coal mines, where a great outlay of capital is required, 
the era of scientific mining has not yet been reached. Nature 
has been so lavish that economy is regarded as unnecessary. 
Yet, as a whole, mining industry has not been uncertain, and it 
is daily growing more constant and healthful. 

THE PRECIOUS METALS.— The beginning of our mining 
operations for the precious metals dates from 1804. Before that 
time desultory and ineffectual attempts were made to dig for 
gold and silver in suspected fields, chiefly those of North Caro- 
lina and Georgia. After that operations assumed more definite 
shape, and gold was mined to the extent of a million dollars a 
year up till the discovery of the mineral in California in 1848. 

Silver was almost an unknown treasure in our soil until its 
discovery in Nevada in 1858. Before that our estimated annual 
product did not exceed ;g 5 0,000. 

On the discovery of gold in California in 1848 our country 
entered upon a career of mining development which has ever 
since poured a constant stream of glittering wealth into her lap 
and placed her at the head of the list of producers of this pre- 
cious mineral. In 1847 the gold product of the country did not 
exceed ;^889,o85. But in 1848 it rose to ;^io,ooo,ooo, in 1849 
to ;^40,ooo,ooo, and averaged for the next ten years some 
;^5 5,000,000 annually. 

Then came the discovery of silver in 1858. The yield of that 
year was 1^500,000. By 1864 it reached ;^ 11, 000,000. Year by 
year it increased till in 1874 it overtopped the gold product at 
;$37, 324,594. Nor has it ceased to increase since. The esti- 
mated yield for 1882 was ^46,800,000, while that of gold for 
the same year was ;^32, 500,000, a grand total of ;^79,300,000. 
The greatest yield of gold was in 1853, estimated at ^65,000,000. 



166 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The estimate of gold and silver production in the United 
States from 1845-82, a period of thirty-eight years, is : 

Gold. Silver. Total. 

$1,590,878,301 5550,972,260 ;552, 1 53,845,47 1 

The vast importance of this element of the national resource 
is shown by the fact that one-third of the gold and one-half of 
the silver yearly produced in the world are mined within our 
borders. The figures run thus : 

Gold. Silver. Total. 

Product of entire world for 1882 ^103, 161,532 $109,446,595 11212,608,127 

Product of United States for 1882.. . 32,500,000 46,800,000 79,300,000 

The census gives the output of the precious metals for the 
year ending May 31, 1880, at gold ;^33, 379,663, and silver ;^4I,- 
1 10,957 — ^ total of ;^74,490,620. 

The areas of precious metals are three in number, (i) Pacific 
Division ; (2) Rocky Mountain Division ; (3) Eastern Division. 

Pacific Division, with product of 1880: 

Gold. Silver. Total. 

Alaska l5.95i ^5^ $6,002 

Arizona 211,965 2,325,825 2,537,790 

California 17,150,941 1,150,887 18,301,828 

Idaho 1 ,479.653 464,550 1 ,944,203 

Nevada 4,888,242 12,430,667 17,318,909 

Oregon 1,097,701 27,793 1*125,494 

Utah ., 291,587 4,743.087 5.034,674 

Washington 135,800 1,019 136,819 

Total $25,261,840 $21,143,879 $46,405,719 

Rocky Mountain Division and product of 1880: 

Gold. Silver. Total. 

Colorado $2,699,898 $16,549,274 $19,249,172 

Dakota 3.305.843 70,813 3,376,656 

Montana 1,805,767 2,905,068 4,710,835 

New Mexico 49.354 392,337 441.691 

Wyoming I7,35i 17.35^ 

Total. $7,878,183 $19,917492 ^^27,795,675 

Eastern Division and product of 1880: 

Gold. Silver. Total. 

Alabama $1,301 j!>i,30i 

Georgia 81,029 $332 81,361 

Maine 2,999 7,200 10,199 

Michigan 25,858 25,858 

New Hampshire 10,999 16,000 26,999 

North Carolina 1 18,953 140 1 19,093 

South Carolina 13,040 56 13,096 

Tennessee 1,998 1,998 

Virginia 9.321 9.321 

Total. $239,640 $49,586 '" 3289,226 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 1^7 

The original form of gold mining was placer mining, in which 
gold-bearing sand was washed in order to obtain the product. 
This was succeeded by hydraulic mining, which was only placer 
mining by machinery. Now only 36 per cent, of the gold pro- 
duct is obtained from placer and hydraulic mining. The bal- 
ance, 64 per cent, is obtained from deep mining, or quartz 
mining. 

QUICKSILVER is found in paying quantities in the coast 
ranges of California. In 1883 it was exported to the extent of 
2,762,555 pounds, valued at ;^ 1,020,834. Nickel is found in pay- 
ing quantities only in Lancaster county. Pa. Traces of tin have 
been found in several States, but nowhere has the ore been 
struck in paying quantities. The newspapers report its exist- 
ence in Virginia and North Carolina, but this remains to be 
proved. The government offers a reward of ;^50,ooo for the 
discovery of a workable tin deposit. 

LEAD AND ZINC. — These useful minerals are generally 
produced from the same mine, especially in Illinois, Iowa and 
Wisconsin. The successful reduction of their ores requires a 
high degree of science, and as this is being more and more 
applied the product increases rapidly. The output of 1880, tak- 
ing the smelting returns, was : 

Lead 162,938,105 pounds. Valued at ;J57,935,I40 

Zinc 62,681,459 " " 4,240,cx)6 

Total "225,619,564 « " 112,175,146 

which was 174 per cent increase on the value of the production 
of 1870. Much of the lead product is obtained from ores whick 
are smelted for the silver they contain. 

COPPER. — This valuable mineral is chiefly mined in what is 
called the Lake Superior copper-bearing region, embraced in 
Michigan and Wisconsin, though it is found in Arizona and 
California, but is not refined there. The production of metallic 
copper, as taken from the smelters' returns for 1880, was 54,172,- 
017 pounds, valued at ;^9,458,434, an increase of 71 per cent on 
the value of the 1870 product 

IRON ORE is widely distributed through the United States, 
is found in inexhaustible quantities in some States, and in almost 



168' BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

every degree of purity. It is regularly mined in twenty-three 
States, and the annual increase of the production keeps pace 
with the rapid growth of our iron industry. The total product 
in 1880 was 7,974,706 tons, valued at ^^23, 156,957, and these fig- 
ures show an increase of 55 per cent, over the value of the pro- 
duction in 1870. The production of iron ore bears such a close 
relation to the production of pig-iron, that we get the best idea 
of the growth of this industry by a glance at the following 
figures : 



Tons of pig-iron produced in 

1875 2,266,581 tons. 

1876 2,093,236 " 

1877 2,314,585 " 

1878 2,577,361 " 



Tons of pig-iron produced in 

1879 3»o7o,875 tons. 

1880 4,295,414 " 

1881 4,641,564 " 

1882 5,178,122 " 



The total number of furnaces in January, 1883, was 687, 277 
of which were in Pennsylvania, whose product of pig for 1882 
was 2,449,256 tons, or nearly half of the total product of the 
country. Ohio follows Pennsylvania with 97 furnaces ; New 
York with 57; Virginia with 38; Michigan with 29; Mary- 
land with 23, and so on. The production of pig in Great 
Britain in 1882 was 8,493,387 tons, and in Germany 3,170,957 
tons. 

COAL. — " Coal," says an official report, " next to gold is the 
most important mining interest in the United States." Consid- 
ered as to its uses and benefits it is by far the most important 
mining interest, and happy it is for the country that such a neces- 
sary mineral is so widely distributed, so accessible and so 
Abundant. 

It would seem that the first coal discovered in America was 
near Ottawa, 111., by the French Jesuit, Father Hennepin, in 
1669. The first employment of coal was. that of anthracite, by a 
blacksmith of Wyoming valley in 1775. A nailer of the same 
locality employed it in his trade in 1788, and twenty years after- 
wards (1808) contrived a grate for burning it as fuel in his house. 
The first mining of coal was in 1 81 3, when five ark-loads of 
inferior anthracite were sent down the Lehigh and Delaware, 
and sold in Philadelphia for twenty dollars a ton. Liverpool 
coal was then sparely imported, the importation for 1821 being 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 169 

22,122 tons for the entire country. By 1820 regular shipments 
of coal began to be made from the anthracite regions of Penn- 
sylvania to Philadelphia, and the total for that year was 18,000 
tons, which figures were not again reached till 1825, when the 
total from the Lehigh, Wyoming and Schuylkill regions reached 
38,499 tons. 

The age of steam transit began with 1830. Then the con- 
struction of railroads, the rapid increase of population, the grow- 
ing scarcity of wood fuel, stimulated coal development, and the 
annual product of anthracite rose rapidly to 678,517 tons in 
1835; to 1,008,220 tons in 1840; to 3,863,365 tons in 1850; to 
9,807,118 tons in i860; to 17,819,700 tons in 1870; to 28,649,- 
812 tons in 1880, valued at ;^42, 196,678. 

The total of the anthracite production to Jan. i, 1883, is esti- 
mated to be 509,333,695 tons. These anthracite areas do not 
embrace over 500 square miles, and they lie in Schuylkill, 
Carbon, Luzerne, Northumberland, Dauphin and Columbia 
counties. The original amount of coal contained in their beds 
is estimated at 25,000,000,000 tons. A sad feature of this 
anthracite mining (common to bituminous mining also) is its 
wastefulness. Not a third of the coal mined has been consumed 
as fuel. Some 40 per cent, has remained as pillar coal in the 
mines, and some 30 per cent, has been wasted, leaving but 30 
per cent, for actual fuel. Counting the anthracite production of 
1882 at 31,281,066 tons, it would establish 3^ rate of production 
which would exhaust the entire supply in 250 years. But the 
science of mining is being rapidly learned and applied, and the 
saving for the last year or two has been such as to considerably 
raise the actual fuel product. The time will no doubt come 
when, admonished by scarcity of supply and encouraged by high 
prices, economic methods will reduce the per cent, of waste to 
a minimum. 

But this limited anthracite section, rich and inexhaustible as 
it has been, is a very small part of our great coal areas. Other 
coal-fields are known and worked in twenty-six States and Ter- 
ritories; but, with the exception of those in Rhode Island, their 
product is of the bituminous, or soft coal, kind. The oldest of 



170 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

these fields is that of the Cumberland, in Maryland, where min- 
ing operations were begun in 1842. But the bituminous fields 
of Western Pennsylvania give by far the greatest annual yield, 
though they are only estimated at 12,000 square miles as against 
36,800 for the bituminous fields of Illinois. 

Interesting as the figures for the coal areas of the several 
States might prove, they must be omitted because of uncer- 
tainty. They however credit Illinois with the largest areas, 
36,800 square miles ; Missouri with 26,887 *> Kansas with 22,256; 
Pennsylvania with 12,772; Arkansas with 12,000; West Vir- 
ginia with 16,000; Kentucky with 12,871. Other States are 
credited with even larger areas, but they are as yet undeveloped. 
Working mines exist, as has been said, in twenty-six States 
and Territories, and the total areas therein are estimated at 
195,403 square miles, with an estimated output for 1882 of 86,- 
862,614 tons, and for 1883 of 88,000,000 tons. 

The Census figures are : 

1870. 1880. 

^ » I * , ^ 

Anthracite 15,664,275 T. $23,619,911 28,649,8127. $42,196,678 

Biiuminous 17,199,415 " 49,905,081 42,776,624 " 53.520,173 

Totals 32,863,690" $72,524,992 71,426,436" $95,716,851 

A comparison with the areas and annual output of other coun- 
tries may be interesting : 

Areas in square miles. Tons for 1882. 

Great Britain 11,900 156,499,097 

United States 195,403 86,862,614 

Germany 1,770 65,332,925 

Belgium 510 17,485,008 

Austro- Hungary 1,800 15,304,013 1881 

China . . . •. 4,000,000 " 

India 2,000 4,000000 " 

Russia 30,000 3,293,312 1880 

France 2,086 2,251,581 1S82 

Nova Scotia 1,365,811 " 

All others .... 6.236,014 

WorUrs production 362,631,275 tons. 

PETROLEUM. — The story of this mining (if such it may 
be called) industry reads like one from the "Arabian Nights." It 
begins within the last quarter of a century and must be real, 
though every chapter is full of surprises, and every sentence a 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 171 

source of wonder. Who would believe a word of it, if it had 
been written two thousand years ago in Greek or Hebrew, and 
then all evidence of the industry lost except the text of the 
story ? 

Petroleum, or rock oil, was not in itself a novelty. It was 
used in ancient times in Sicily. The Persians obtained it from 
the Caspian shores. The Birmese gathered it on the banks of the 
Irawaddy. The Indians of our continent caught it in blankets, 
and used it for medicinal purposes. An article in the " Massachu- 
setts Magazine," in 1791, speaks of a body of soldiers passing 
through Oil Creek Valley and collecting rock oil, which they 
found good for rheumatism and a gentle purgative. Mr. Pater- 
son, Pa., in 1845, ^ook ^ sample bottle to a Pittsburg factory 
to test its lubricating qualities. It found such favor that it 
was used for a long time in the establishment instead of sperm 
oil. 

But all this was as to surface oil, the oil of the magician and 
curiosity-seeker. There came a time when the discovery of its 
fountains was to startle the world and begin a history which has 
no parallel in commercial and industrial enterprise, except that 
of steam. Petroleum, as we now know it, came to the surface 
just when the world needed it. Fish and animal oils were an- 
nually decreasing. Illuminating and lubricating agents were 
getting higher. In 1859, the first artificial well in Oil Creek 
Valley was filled with oil to within five inches of the surface, and 
from it was taken as high as 1,000 gallons a day. Then began 
the stampede to the oil regions, and the era of reckless pursuit of 
fortune, extravagant experiment, wild successes, dismal failures. 
The 1849 o^ California was repeated for years in Pennsylvania. 
Money and enterprise brought wonderful machinery. Flowing 
wells were struck in 1 861. Development took in all subjects 
connected with oil production and its possibilities. Amid mighty 
waste of health, money, machinery and raw product, a perma- 
nent industry grew. It was the oil industry of America, created 
almost in a single year, and in less than half a dozen years ex- 
panded into an importance which affected the commerce of the 
world and the comfort of millions of its people. 



172 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

As to our own country what so opportune as the discovery 
of this wonderful resource! The trade of the nations was against 
us. Gold was passing away from us. We were being drained 
of other natural resources to meet the exigency of civil war. 
Petroleum came to quicken our external commerce, and to 
stimulate our internal industry. Almost from the start it became 
an article of export, and has been going out every year since 
with the certainty of a staple, and, until lately, without com- 
petition, at the average rate of nearly ;^50,ooo,ooo worth a 

year. 

1882. 1883. 



Gallons. Value. Gallons. Value. 

Export of crude and refined oil 556,239.278 151,019,904 499,786,266 $44,470,433 

The petroleum areas are in Western Pennsylvania, and West 
Virginia, and in Eastern Ohio, extending into Kentucky. The 
census figures for the product of 1879-80 are : 

Barrels. 

Pennsylvania 24,005,392 

West Virginia and Washington Co., Ohio 219,254 

Ohio 5>059 

Kentucky 5»376 

Total barrels 24,235,081 

At 42 gallons per barrel 1,017,873,402 gallons. 

At 2^ cents a gallon for crude $23,000,000 

The delay and expense of carrying this enormous oil product 
to the shipping ports, as well as the danger attending it, have 
been overcome by underground transit provided by means of 
pipes and pumping stations. Through these oil can be con- 
stantly, cheaply and safely delivered at, or near to, ports of 
foreign shipment, and in quantities equal to the demand. Great 
quantities are always in stock in these pipes, and one thousand 
barrel certificates of such stock are as common on the market 
and as much a source of speculative purchase and sale as rail- 
road or mining stocks. 

A result of the discovery of petroleum has been the establish- 
ment of the great industry of refining the crude material. Some 
of the refining establishments, mostly located at coast or inland 
shipping points, are very large and costly. In 1880 they used 
731,533,127 gallons of crude oil, valued at ;$i6,340,58i. When 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 173 

converted into illuminating oil and other products of petroleum 
the above value became $4.-^,20^,218, or nearly three times its 
crude worth. Various and curious are the higher products of 
petroleum. Besides the naphtha, gasoline, rhigoline and paraffine 
produced in this country, we have the beautiful aniline dyes 
made in Germany, and brought back to us thence, which rival 
in brilliancy and permanency the celebrated colors of ancient. 
Tyre. 

COMMERCE. — We derive great advantage from the nature, 
extent and accessibility of our sea-board. Our whole Atlantic 
coast from Maine to Florida presents an infinite variety of en- 
trances and harbors. So does the gulf coast ; and if the variety 
is not so great on the Pacific, the harbors are spacious, safe and 
sufficiently numerous to invite the largest commerce. The 
great lakes of the North give an extent of navigation almost 
equal to that of an ocean. Our leading ports are all rendered 
accessible to an incalculably rich interior by means of navigable 
streams, or by elaborate systems of railroads. Our commercial 
situation is therefore favorable on all sides and from within. We 
ought to, and we will, stand at the head of the list of commer- 
cial nations. 

Almost at the start the United States sprang into importance 
as a commercial nation. Nature was on our side ; so were the 
political circumstances of the old world. We were compara- 
tively neutral amid long periods of European commotion. 
American shipping became the safest medium through which to 
conduct the commerce of the world. Americans had, further, 
every advantage for wooden ship-building — genius, enterprise, 
timber, resource of every kind. Says an author, "At the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century it seemed as if the commerce of 
the world were passing into American hands." By this is meant 
the carrying trade of the world. We were not only carrjnng 
our own goods but those of other nations. Our ships went 
everywhere, on extensive and profitable lines of trade. The 
foolish invitation of an unnecessary war, in 181 2, which decided 
nothing, weakened us greatly as ocean carriers. The foreign trade 
we had only begun to enjoy passed largely to foreign bottoms. 



174 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

We never really recovered the vantage ground of i8i2, though 
with our splendid " Liners " and " Clipper Ships " of a much 
later period we got to be somewhat of a- carrying nation. But 
our greatest commercial blow was during the civil war, 1861-65, 
when our ships engaged in the foreign carrying trade were com- 
pelled to change ownership and flag in order to escape capture 
by Confederate cruisers, or owing to the temporary demand for 
them went voluntarily into other service. Since then we have 
not recovered our position as foreign carriers. We have but 
one American steamship line of four vessels, and that is operated 
at a loss. 

While it is true that we have not advanced as ocean-carriers, 
on the contrary have lost ground, our general commercial in- 
terests have expanded in proportion to the growth of the country, 
and our merchant tonnage is second only to that of Great Britain. 
The latter country employed in 1880-81, 2,869 steamers of over 
100 tons burden, with a net tonnage of 2,652,941 tons. We em- 
ployed 548 steamers, of a net tonnage of 389,937 tons.. But a 
majority of the British steamers were engaged in foreign trade, 
while ours were, with very few exceptions, engaged in domestic 
or coastwise trade. The same may be said of the sailing vessels, 
of which Great Britain employed 11,893, of 4,295,589 net ton- 
nage, and the United States 5,958, of 2,048,975 net tonnage. 

In 1789 our total foreign, coastwise, and fishing tonnage, in 
other words the tonnage of our merchant marine, was 201,562 
tons. This grew with wonderful rapidity till it reached 972,492 
tons in 1800, and 1,424,783 tons in 18 10. Then came the decline 
incident to the war of 1 812. In 1820 the tonnage was 1,280,167, 
and of this amount, not a half was in the foreign trade.. In 1830, it 
was 1,191,776 tons; in 1840, 2,180,764 tons; in 1850, 3,535,454 
tons ; in 186 1, 5,539,813 tons, which was the highest point it ever 
reached. In 1870 it was 4,246,507 tons; in 1880, 4,068,034 
tons; and in 1882, 4,165,933 tons. It can hardly be said that 
we have begun to recover from the set-back in 1 86 1, for, except 
for coastwise purposes, we are not building ocean craft, notwith- 
standing our boast that we can do so as cheaply and well as 
England, and the further fact that there is need of American 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 175 

ships for American products. Of this total tonnage of 4,165,933 
tons in 1882, but 1,259,492 tons were engaged in foreign trade, 
and, as already stated, but four of the vessels were steamers. 

In passing to our trade growth as shown by exports and im- 
ports, we shall endeavor to show also the loss of our afeility to 
handle, as ocean-carriers, the immense product we part with and 
consume. In 1790 we imported goods to the value of ;^22,46o,- 
844. As a set-off to this we exported only $ig,666,ooo worth 
of product. This, at that time, was a large balance against us. 
But we had not yet begun to know our resources. In 1800 our 
exports were ;^3 1,840,903, and our net imports ;^52,i2i,89i, a 
still larger balance against us, which had existed through the 
preceding decade and was to exist through the next. In 18 10 
the account stood, exports ;^42, 366,675, imports ;^6 1,008,705. 
To show how nearly our trade was extinguished by the war of 
1812, the exports of 1814 were only ;^6,782, 272, and our imports 
;^ 1 2,8 19,83 1. And to show our need after the struggle, as well 
as the willingness and ability of foreign nations to supply us, our 
exports for 181 5 were ;^45 ,974,403, and our net imports ;^io6,- 
457,924. But up to this period our total imports were almost 
double what the above figures show and what we actually con- 
sumed, for we were thus far a great ocean-carrying nation, and 
constantly brought hither the products of other nations with 
intent to export them again. Thus in 1806 we brought ;^6o,283,- 
236 worth of this class of products (called foreign exports), or 
one-half of our total imports for the year. This class of pro- 
ducts, which at that time very nearly measured our superiority as 
ocean-carriers, fell to ;^i45,i69 in 1814; that is to say, the 
long and profitable trading routes of our splendid wooden 
sailers had been broken up and the ships themselves condemned 
to rot at idle wharves. However, recovery was in part had, 
but only to be followed again by a gradual decadence of early 
prestige as carriers. The showing for 1820 was total imports 
;^74,450,ooo, less re-exports ;^ 18,008,029, equal to ^56,441,971. 
Total domestic exposes ;^5 1,683,640. At this time nearly ninety 
per cent, of our imports and exports were carried in American 
vessels. 



176 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

We can continue this history more briefly in tabular form. 

Per cent 

Total of Total of carried in 

both carried both carried Ameri- 

Total Total. in American in foreign can ves- 

^ imports. ex|X)rts. vessels. vessels. sels. 

1830 $70,516,920 ^5173,849,508 $129,918,458 14,447.970 89.9 

1840 107,141,519 132,085,946 198,424,609 40,802,856 82.9 

1850.... 178,138,318 151,898,720 239,272,084 90,764,954 72.5 

i860 362,166,254 400,122,296 507,247,757 255,040,793 66.5 

1865.... 248,555,652 355.857,344 167,402,872 437,010,124 27.7 

1870. ... 462,377,587 529.519.302 352,969,607 638,927,282 35.6 

1880 743,481,765 845,990,528 280,005,497 1,309,466,796 17.6 

1881.... 733,737,199 912,849,421 268,080,603 1,378,506,017 16.2 

1882 741,446,035 741,324,945 241,422,832 1,241,348,148 16.2 

1883 751.670,305 855,659,735 247,761,173 1,281,200,026* 16.2 

While the above figures are complimentary as showing the 
wonderful growth of our ability to sell and buy in the markets 
of the world, and while they are especially flattering as proof 
of success in retaining a balance of trade in our favor, the 
gradual decline of ability to act as our own carriers or as carriers 
for others, is humiliating. It has been nearly continuous, and 
at times rapid, since the war of 18 12. The period of the civil 
war was particularly disastrous, as the column of per cent, de- 
clines shows. There was an attempt to recover lost ground by 
1870, but this .was spasmodic, and the old ratio of losses set in 
shortly after. The matter is now awakening universal interest, 
and it is possible that our pride, co-operating with our un- 
doubted facilities for making iron and steel ships, will eventuate 
in a restoration of our early prestige as ocean carriers. 

Among our imports for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, 
were: 

Free of duty. Quantity. Value. 

Chemicals $7,164,675 

Coffee 515,878,515 lbs. 42,050,513 

Hides and skins 27,640,030 

India rubber, crude 21,646,320 " 15,511,066 

Silk, raw 3.253.370 " 14,043,340 

Tea 73,479,164. " 17,302,849 

Tin, pigs 26,635,168 " 6,106,250 

* The import and export of coin and bullion for 1883 and the imports and ex- 
ports of goods from and to Canada by vehicles are not included in the last two 
columns for that year. The two make a total movement of $78,368,84 1, which is not 
assigned to vessels. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 177 

Dutiable. Quantity. Value. 

Living animals 20 per ct. .... $4,030,822 

Barley 15 cts. per bush. 9,944,066 bush. 7,573,443 

Rice 2J^ cts. per lb. 63,909,474 lbs. 1,391,742 

Buttons 30 per ct. 3,771,331 

Chemicals and dyes various rates 16,134,204 

Manufactures cotton chiefly 35 per ct. 32,359,344 

China and earthenware " 50 " 8,693,273 

Fancy articles " 50 " 7,908,102 

Manufactures flax " 40 " 22,088,891 

Fruits and nuts | *^^'^^^/j^ ^*^' } 151,902,523 lbs. 18,157,687 

Manufactures of glass various 7,597,^97 

Hemp and manufactures of . . " 12,615,393 

Iron and manufactures of. ... " 20,305,844 

Steel and manufactures of .. . " 20,531,532 

Leather and manufactures of.. " 12,653,722 

Silk and manufactures of. . ..50 and 60 per ct. 33,307,112 

Spirits and wines { ^^fb^spirit^s?^^' } 9,309,849 galls. 1 2,586.869 

Sugar i|^ and 2 c. per lb. 1,900,054,706 lbs. 83,025,729 

Molasses 6J^ c. i)er gall 28,059,013 galls. 7,059,907 

Tin plates ij\^ c. per lb. 453,724,126 lbs. 16,688,277 

Wool and manufactures of, ..various. 57,044,444 

The grand total for the year, as seen above, was ;^7 5 1,670,305. 

Our heaviest articles of import are therefore sugar, wool and 
woolen goods, silks, cottons and linens, coffee, tea and raw silk. 
As to coffee and tea, we must always be buyers ; as to the rest, 
we need not always be dependent on a foreign supply. 

Our principal articles of export for 1883 were: 

Quantity. Value. 

Agricultural implements. 1^3,883,919 

Cattle and hogs 10,921,163 

Indian corn 40.586,825 bush. 27,756,082 

Wheat 106,385,828 " 119,879,341 

" flour . . 9,205,664 bbls. 54,824,459 

Cotton ...1,288,074,062 lbs. 247,328,721 

Cotton manufactures 137,700,751 yds. 10,302,867 

Manufactures of iron and steel 19.165,321 

Leather • 6,038,097 

Oils, crude and refined 499,786,266 galls. 44,470,433 

Provisions, as Bacon 294,118,759 lbs. 32,282,751 

" Hams 46,140,911 " 5,873,201 

" Beef, fresh 81,064,373 " 8,342,131 

" " salted 41,680,623 " 3,742,282 

" Butter 12,348,641 " 2,290,665 

" Cheese.*. 99,220,467 " 11,134,526 

" Lard 224,718,474 " 26,618,048 

" Pork 62,116,302 " 6,192,268 

" All others 10,911,415 

Tobacco and manufactures of. .. 235,647,348 lbs. 22,095,249 

Wood and manufactures of 26,793,708 

Coin and Bullion 21,623,181 

12 



178 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The grand total for the year was, as we have seen, $S^$,- 

659735- 

A glance at our exports shows that cotton is the leading 
article, followed closely by the cereals and flour. Then comes 
the long list of provisions. We not only live well ourselves, but 
we help others to subsist. Our fourth article of export is petro- 
leum and its manufactures, which has risen to its rank inside of 
twenty years. All these leading articles of export are those 
of a people with great natural resources, which they as yet 
mainly rely on for commercial purposes. But we see in the 
sending abroad of agricultural implements, manufactures of 
cotton, wood, iron and steel, evidences of a perfection in machin- 
ery and mechanical arts which is already commanding respect 
elsewhere, and must ere long give us a conspicuous place among 
the older nations as competitors for the supply of these higher 
classed manufactures. 

Of our exports Great Britain and Ireland receives nearly 52 
per cent., and participates in 40 per cent, of our entire foreign 
trade. That kingdom takes the bulk of our wheat, flour, cotton, 
and provisions, Germany tobacco and cotton, Brazil and China 
much of our cotton manufactures, the world in general our 
petroleum. Great Britain in turn sends us cotton and woollen 
manufactures, iron in all forms, tin plates and tin pigs, earthen- 
ware, and wool ; Germany, woollen and cotton goods, glass and 
wines ; France, silks, laces and gloves ; Brazil, coflee ; the West 
Indies and Mediterranean countries, fruits and nuts; Norway 
and Sweden, iron ; Russia, wool and iron ; China, tea ; Turkey, 
opium and wool. 

Nearly- 56 per cent, of our foreign commerce is carried on at 
the port of New York, the value for 1883 being ^857,430,637. 
The transactions at Boston amounted to ;^ 134,9 18,824; ^^ New 
Orleans (chiefly exports), .to ;^ 1 04,704,076 ; at San Francisco, 
;^90,66i,65o; at Philadelphia, ;^7i, 880,300; at Baltimore, ^^69,- 
602,530. 

The domestic or internal commerce of the United States far 
exceeds the foreign commerce in value and importance. 
There are no figures to show its extent exactly, but when we 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 179 

consider that the number of steamers, sailing vessels, canal-boats, 
barges, flat-boats and craft of every kind, owned in the country 
and plying in its waters, is 38,656, with a tonnage of 6,487,310 
tons, and a value of ;^ 15 5, 784,709, and that the most of these 
are busy the year round; and when we further consider the 
wonderful carrying capacity of our railroads, whose net earnings 
alone for 1883 are estimated at ;^ 800,000,000 ; the annual value 
of our internal commerce may be set down as among the billions 
of dollars without exceeding the probabilities. 

RAILROADS. — In no line of progress has this country 
shown such rapidity and brilliancy as in erecting and operating 
railroads. Many claim that our enterprise in this direction has 
exceeded the bounds of prudence. . No doubt many railroad 
projects of mistaken propriety have been pushed through. Much 
capital has been wasted. The government and some of the 
States have been generous in the extreme with gifts of public 
lands as a basis of railroad securities. But, all in all, it cannot 
be said that our dash and enterprise have been misdirected. 
Streams of population and substantial improvement have made 
haste to follow railroad lines even when they seemed to be pierc- 
ing what was regarded as a wilderness or barren plain. In general 
our railways have surely developed the fields they traversed. 
If pioneered amid seeming extravagance they have subsisted on 
food of their own bringing. 

In 1830 we made a beginning in railroad building. The 
mileage for that year was 23. In 1840, it was 2,818; in 1850, 
9,021; in i860, 30,635; in 1870, 52,914; in 1880,91,944; and 
in 1883, 117,717 miles. This total rmleage exceeds that of any 
other country in the world, and indeed that of all Europe ; the 
total for Europe being 105,895, of which Germany has 21,565 ; 
Great Britain and Ireland 18,168; Russia, 14,067; France, 
17,027; Austro-Hungary;^,738. The world's- railways stand 
thus : 



Miles of Railroad. Miles of Railroad. 

North America 127,830 

West Indies and Nicaragua. . . . 1,094 
South America 7»3l6 



Europe 105,895 



Asia 14.131 

Africa 3,068 

Australia 5'592 



Total miles 264,826 



J 30 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Taking the figures as found in " Poor's R. R. Manual " for 
1883 (they are for the year 1882) we find that the total mileage 
in the United States was 11 2,4 12, of which 107,158 were operated. 
Of this length of line Illinois had 10,656 miles ; Ohio came next 
with 7,968 miles ; then New York, 6,723 miles ; Pennsylvania, 
6,608 miles; Indiana, 6,366 miles; Missouri, 6,029 rniles; Wis- 
consin, 5,744 miles; Texas, 5,715 miles. The other States have 
smaller mileage, but the distribution is very general, extending 
into forty-four States and Territories. 

The total cost of constructing and equipping each mile of 
road has been about ;^5 2,756, or altogether ;^5, 930,409,624. 

The capital stock was 1^3,456,078,196, the funded debt $3,184- 
415,201, and the total investment ;^6, 895, 664,390. 

They carried 289,190,783 passengers, at an average fare of 2.86 
cents per mile, and with gross earnings equal to ;^202, 140,775. 

They carried 380,490,375 tons of freight, at an average 
cost of 1.2 cents a ton per mile, and with gross earnings equal 
to ;^5o6,367,247. 

Their total gross earnings for the year were ;^770,256,762, and 
net earnings ;^28o,3 16,696. 

They paid ;!^ 149,295,300 in interest on indebtedness, and ;^I02,- 
031 434 in dividends. 

Every 100 miles of road had 19.67 locomotives; 13.83 
passenger cars; 4.77 baggage cars; and 632 freight cars. 

CANALS. — There is no such thing as a canal system in the 
United States. This method of internal communication was 
once a favorite. It early received the attention of Congress, 
and was for a long time a chief object of solicitude. During 
all the time that " Internal Improvement " was a party tenet, it 
referred mostly to the building of canals. In proportion to their 
length, amount of capital invested, and their importance to 
internal commerce they have been more liberally treated by the 
government and the States than the railroads. For instance the 
national government has expended directly for canals over 
;^9,000,000, while it has not similarly favored railroads to the ex- 
tent of over ;^85, 000,000, half of which is a simple loan of 
security to be refunded in certain ways, and on which interest 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 181 

is collectable. Besides this 4,405,986 acres of public lands have 
been given to canals. The States have been equally liberal. 
Hence we say they were a favorite means of building up internal 
commerce, at an early period. But that was before the era of 
railroads. 

Canal-building began before the adoption of the Constitution, 
or as early as 1785, on the James River, Va. But the period of 
greatest activity dates from 18 17 to 18 19, when were conceived and 
begun those projects for connecting the lakes with the Hudson, 
the Delaware with New York, and the Upper Susquehannah and 
Schuylkill with tide water, and which then looked like the 
dawn of a vast internal carrying system. Many of these were 
completed between 1820 and 1830, and served an excellent pur- 
pose — indeed, serve the same yet. But after 1840 the slow- 
going water way was in general superseded by steam, and canal 
building was limited to slackwater enterprises or to short lines 
around falls or through necks for the purpose of facilitating 
steam communication. 

The total length of canals in operation in the United States 
in 1880 was 2,926 miles, of which 2,515 miles were canal and 
41 1 miles slackwater. Of this length New York had a total of 
722 miles; New Jersey, 171 miles; Pennsylvania, 775 miles; 
Delaware, 14 miles ; Maryland, 200 miles ; Virginia, 75 miles ; 
North Carolina, 13 miles; Georgia, 25 miles; Florida, 10 miles; 
Louisiana, 28 miles; Texas, 38 miles; Illinois, 102 miles; 
Michigan, 3 miles ; Ohio, 749 miles. 

The total cost of constructing these canals was $170,028,636. 
They carried, in 1880, 21,044,292 tons of freight, at a gross in- 
come of ;^4,5 38,620, and a net income of $2.g^4,i^6. 

At the same time there were in the United States 1,954 miles 
of abandoned canals, whose cost was ;^44,oi3,i66; showing that 
canal communication was largely abandoned on the appearance 
of railroads, or that many of the schemes for canal-building were 
originally wild and impracticable. 

TELEGRAPHS. — The telegraphic method of communication, 
so swift, cheap, and capable of such diversification, came into 
favor instantly in the United States. By 1866 when the scat- 



182 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tered and struggling individual lines were gathered into a single 
corporation, known as the Western Union Telegraph Company, 
there were 37,380 miles of line and 75,686 miles of wire. 

The figures for 1870 were 54,109 miles of line and 112,191 
miles of wire. For 1880 they were 110,726 miles of line and 
291,212 miles of wire, for the United States; 85,645 miles of 
line and 233,534 miles of wire being operated by the Western 
Union Company. The total value of the telegraphic franchises 
in the country is in round numbers ^100,000,000. The capital 
stock of the Western Union is ;$8o,ooo,ooo. Their receipts in 
1880 were ;^ 16,669,62 3 ; expenses ^^ 10,2 18,281 ; and net receipts 
^6,645,342. 

This does not include the length of lines connected with the 

various railroad companies, nor that of government, private and 

telephone lines. There are no figures for these. As to the 

principal countries of the world we stand thus : 

Length of Tel. Lines. Messages sent. 

United States, 1882 163,940 51,942,247 

Russia, 1880 53.736 4,710,120 

France, 1881 45,878 19,466,000 

Germany, 1 88 1 45,070 17,507,000 

Austro-Hungary, 1881 31,121 8,865,000 

Australasia, 1880 27,831 

Great Britain, 1882 26,289 3i»345.86i 

India (British), 1880 20,468 1,431,000 

Italy, 1881 16,692 6,250,000 

The total length of the world's lines was quite 6oo,ooo miles 
in 1883, more than a fourth of which was in the United States, 
not counting railroad and private lines. 

TELEPHONES. — This new and unique method of communi- 
cation has come into existence within the memory of the young- 
est. For use in cities and between neighboring towns it has 
largely superseded the telegraph, and it is thought that ere long 
it will be possible to talk by telephone over very long distances 
and even through submarine wires. Not even the most enthusi- 
astic of us can begin to conjure the possibilities of electric com- 
munication, or of electricity as a motor. 

It is impossible to ascertain the number of telephones and the 
length of telephone wires already in the United States. Lines 
and instruments are being erected so rapidly as to di^iy all 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. Ig3 

ordinary statistics. The Census figures (1880) give 34,305 miles 
of telephone wire in use. By Jan. i, 1883, it was estimated that 
there were 100,000 miles of wire in use, over which passed com- 
munications at the rate of 120,000,000 annually. But the reader 
is left to guess the amount of capital now rushing into this busi- 
ness and the number of miles of wire annually erected. He can 
safely double any of the above estimates without exceeding the 
figures for 1884. 

EDUCATION. — Passing from commercial to educational 
development, we find the same cause for pride in a growth 
wHich has been signal and exceptional. It seems like a marvel 
that education should have kept up with the whirl of material 
development incident to a new country and one so full of induce- 
ment. That it has so done is due to a spirit traceable to our 
fathers, who early recognized the paramount importance of 
mental culture amid institutions which were free. 

The marvel is only increased when we consider that our 
various systems of education have had to meet not only the 
mental wants of native children, but those of immigrants less 
favored than our own, and, more lately, the wants of a vast 
aggregate of persons in the South who did not for generations 
enjoy school opportunities. 

We doubt if the world presents another such an instance of will- 
ingness to educate its people, and of ability to contend with the 
problems of primary education. The supreme thought of every 
intelligent section, and of every hour since we were colonies, has 
been that the safety of the nation and its system of government 
rests on the general diffusion of knowledge. Common school 
systems, therefore, found an early birth and a hearty support. 
Their growth has been a pride, even amounting to competition 
among most of the States. The general government has not 
been backward in aiding the States, by its grant to the school 
fund of each State of a section (640 acres) out of each township 
of public lands ; by its further grant of 9,000,000 acres to certain 
States for State universities; and again in 1862 by a grant of 
30,000 acres to each State for the purpose of founding a College 
of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. 



184 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It is no part of our work to discuss the nature of our respective 
common school systems. They are happily coincident in secur- 
ing to the young an education sufficient for every-day require- 
ments, and the standard is such that that education is of no mean 
order. It makes excellent business men, readers and thinkers, 
and is a sufficient foundation upon which to base acquisition of 
a higher and more special order. 

Our educational system does not end with common schools. 
It ramifies thoughout an infinite number of public and private 
academies, and ends in a chain of high schools and colleges 
which embraces the land. Some of the latter are our very 
oldest institutions, dating far beyond the period of the Declara- 
tion, and not a few of them rank with the best of the kind in the 
old world. In special schools of agriculture, science, and 
observation, we are making more rapid progress than ever 
before. 

While our past educational growth is a matter of pride, and 
our facilities such as they are, we must not forget that there is 
vast room for improvement, especially in forcing our educational 
systems down lower among the masses and addressing them to 
iheir precise wants. Our army of illiterates is still large and 
greatly out of proportion to our population. This time will 
remedy if all the States are persistent. But there must be no 
remission of effort. As to the other question, the kind of educa- 
tion : the tendency is to change methods so as to educate the 
hand and eye along with the mind ; in other words to make 
primary education the basis of a practical training in handicraft 
of some kind or all kinds. 

The universities and colleges in the United States numbered, 
in 1882, 365, with 4,413 instructors and 64,096 students. In 
the same year the theological seminaries numbered 145, with 
712 instructors and 4,921 students. 

The Census figures for 1880 give 225,880 common schools in 
the United States, valued at ;^ 2 11, 4 11, 5 40. 

For the same year there were employed 236,019 teachers, at 
an average monthly salary of ;^36.2 1. 

To sustain these schools for the school year there was ex- 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 185 

pended ;^79,339,8i4, of which ;^5 5,745 ,029 was for teachers' 
salaries. 

The schools were open an aggregate of 1,462,174 months, or 
an average of six months and a fraction for each school. 

The whole number of pupils who attended was 9,946,160, and 
the average attendance was 6,276,398. 

The figures of the Commissioner of Education for 1882 give 
the total school population of the country at 16,210,133, of whom 
9,996,133 were enrolled as at school, and the average daily 
attendance as 6.120,454. The total amount expended for school 
purposes, for the year, was ;^9 1,400,459, of which $$7,954,9^^ 
was for teachers' salaries. The school ages vary in the re- 
spective States, from 4-21 to 8-14 years, an average of 14^ 
years. 

A comparison with the leading educational countries of the 
world affords cause for congratulation. The figures are from the 
report of the Bureau of Education for 1 88 1, but refer to statistics 
for 1879 and those years next previous, as they could be ob- 
tained. They are for elementary schools only : 

Population. School Pop. Schools. Pupils. Teachers. 

United States 50,152,866 14,962,336 225,000 Est. 9,424,080 272,686 

Austria 21,752,000 3,122,863 15,166 2,134,683 31,196 

England & Wales. 25,165,336 2,500,000 17,166 3,710,883 69,527 

France 36,905,788 6,409,087 71,547 4,716,935 110,709 

Prussia 25,742,404 4,396,738 34,988 4,007,776 57,936 

Italy 26,801,000 4,527,582 47,411 1,931,617 47,085 

J-^pan 34,245,323 5,251,807 25,459 2,162,962 59,825 

Our elementary school age is longer than that of any other 
country, which is a good point in our favor. The usual age in 
Europe is from six to fourteen, or at most sixteen. While this 
makes our school population larger in proportion to our entire 
population, it will be seen that we are also better equipped in 
the way of schools and teachers to meet its wants than any other 
country. 

The dark side of the situation is presented by the figures 
bearing on illiteracy. 

Persons over 10 years who Persons over 10 years who 

Population. cannot read. cannot wriie. 

1870 38,558,371 4,528,084 1 1. 8 per cent. 5,658,144 14.7 per cent. 

1880.... 50,155,783 4,923,451 9-8 " 6,239,958 12.4 " 



186 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It would appear then that even this dark side is not without 
its ray. Those who could not read were 2 per cent, less of the 
population in 1880 than in 1870, and those who could not write 
were 2.3 per cent. less. Of the 6,239,95 8' who could not write 
2,255,260 were native whites, 763,620 foreign whites, and 3,220,- 
878 colored persons. The per cents, of illiteracy are lowest in 
the New England, Western and Northwestern States, and highest 
in the Southern, even among whites ; but their per cent, is greatly 
increased by the number of illiterate colored persons found 
there. 

Taking our rate of total illiteracy at 10 per cent., it ranks almost 
as low as that of any other country. Bavaria has a rate of 7 
per cent. Japan may fall below 10 per cent. The German rate 
is placed at 12 per cent., England and Wales at 30 per cent, 
Scotland at 16 per cent., Austria at 49 per cent., Ireland at 46 
per cent., Russia at 91 per cent, Spain at 80 per cent So that 
if we cannot claim a lead in diffused elementary intelligence, we 
stand well and are in possession of the agencies to give us the 
rank which is our due. 

LIBRARIES. — While we cannot boast of immense libraries 
— the collection of ages — like the National Library of France 
with its 2,000,000 volumes, the British Museum with its 1,500,- 
000 volumes, or the Imperial Library of Russia with its 1,100,000 
volumes, we are nevertheless a nation of readers, with a greater 
number of public and private libraries of respectable proportions 
than any other people. They ai»e found in every State. Statis- 
tics respecting them are very uncertain, but those of New York 
and Pennsylvania are the most numerous, while the collections 
of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia are very valuable. 
The largest library in the country is the Congressional Library 
at Washington, whose volumes approximate 500,000 in number. 
The number of libraries in the country is in excess of 200,000 
with over 50,000,000 books. Of these full 60,000 are public 
and contain 25,000,000 books. But these estimates are far below 
the truth. The fact is, a house without a library, or the nucleus 
of one, is getting to be an exceptional thing. Books of value 
are bought and treasured by our people, and sales of popular 
works often reach enormous figures. 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 137 

THE PRESS. — In no branch of literature has our progress 
been more marked than in that known as periodical publication. 
The figures show for 

Number of 

Periodicals. Circulation. 

1870 ♦.. 5,871 20,842,475 

1880... 11,403 31,177,924 



Number of 

Periodicals. Circulation. 

1850 2,526 5>i42,i77 

i860 4,051 13,663,409 



Of those for 1 880, 980 were daily papers, 8,718 weekly papers, 
1,705 miscellaneous, and 10,625 of them were published in Eng- 
lish and 778 in other languages. Of the entire number 8,816 
were devoted to news, 574 to religious subjects, 162 to agricul- 
ture, 146 to general literature, and 1,705 to miscellaneous 
matters. The whole number of printed copies was 1,344,- 
101,235, valued at ;^87,44I,I32. Wages paid by publishers, 
;^28,57i,330. 

While all this is flattering to our literary tastes, the business 
of periodical publishing is the most precarious in existence. 
Failures to establish permanent paying newspapers and maga- 
zines are the rule and not the exception. The pathway of this 
class of publishing is strewn with thick wreckage. It is an in- 
fluential, captivating business, but one prolific of disaster, unless 
it engages more than ordinary tact, talent and capital. 

CHURCHES. — Under our free, non-sectarian, yet Christian 
institutions, the religions of Protestantism have found their 
grandest opportunity and have made the most of it. They have 
built congregations and edifices, have instructed and converted, 
have enlightened and evangelized, wherever people could be 
grouped or the light of the cross could penetrate. They have 
carried the divine energy into the midst of all the other mighty 
forces which have been shaping our government, directing our 
enterprises and developing our resources, so that, if not as pious 
a people as we might be, we are not irreverent, but are imbued 
with a spirit which, on proper call, awakens readily to philan- 
thropy and responds to refined and holy emotions. 

It is a matter of great moment to us in a national sense that 
the religious energy has so successfully worked in with the other 
energies which a new country called into play, but which would, 
by reason of their freedom and lustiness, have inevitably grown 



188 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

coarse and heathenish if they had not been influenced by some 
sweet, refining and saving presence. The church has been a 
growth here in a highly institutional sense. That growth has 
been regular, as it has been needful. Church property in the 
United States has gotten to be of fabulous value. Church 
architecture is based on approved models. Church accommoda- 
tion may be inadequate, but it is cleanly, comfortable and invit- 
ing, as far as it goes. Of denominations there is great variety, 
as there should be where there is no restriction on the order of 
human thought and no curb on the emotions. 

The Catholic faith claims 6,832,954 adherents in the United 
States. It does not report church membership, but counts its 
adherents by birthright. It worships through 6,546 ministers in 
6,241 churches. 

The Methodist faith has ever been a popular one in this 
new country, on account of its energy and directness. It is 
subdivided into some ten or eleven branches, widely spread, 
and reaching the lowest of the masses. Its figures in 1882 
were : 

Churches. Ministers. Members. 

Methodist Episcopal . , I7j935 24,658 1,724,420 

(South) 1 1,703 860,687 

(African) 1,738 387,566 

" " (Zion) 1,800 300,000 

(Colored) 638 1 1 2,938 

Methodist Free 260 12,318 

" Congregational 225 I3>750 

" Primitive 52 3,369 

" Protestant 1 ,385 I35,ooo 

" Calvinistic I»I34 600 118,979 

" Wesleyan 400 17,087 

Total membership 3,686,1 14 

The Baptist faith has been actively pushed by an intelligent 
ministry. It has divided into five branches. 

Churches. Ministers. Members. 

Baptist 26,060 16,596 2,296,327 

" Anti-Mission 900 400 40,000 

" Free Will 1,432 1,213 78,012 

" Seventh Day 94 lio 8,539 

" Six Principles 20 12 2,000 

Total membership 2,424,978 

The Presbyterian faith, like the Baptist, is in the keeping of 



BUILDING INDUSTRIALLY. 189 

an influential ministry, and has been embraced in our most 
thoughtful and vigorous communities. Its subdivisions and 
numbers are : 

Churches. Ministers. Members. 

Presbyterian 5,858 5,218 600,695 

" South 2,010 1,081 123,806 

" Cumberland 2,457 1,386 111,863 

" Reformed 167 143 17,273 

" United 826 719 84,573 

Total membership 938,210 

The Episcopal faith embraces : 

Churches. Ministers. Members. 

Episcopal, Protestant 3,000 3,432 33^^333 

" Reformed lOO 9,448 

Total membership 347,781 

The other faiths are Second Adventists with 800 churches, 
600 ministers and 70,000 members; Seventh Day Adventists 
with 640 churches, 144 ministers and 15,570 members; Con- 
gregational with 3,804 churches, 3,713 ministers and 351,697 
members; Disciples of Christ with 5,100 churches, 3,782 minis- 
ters and 591,821 members; Dunkards with 250 churches, 200 
ministers and 100,000 members; Evangelical Association with 
1,576 churches, 1,545 ministers and 117,027 members; Friends 
with 392 churches, 200 ministers and 60,000 members; Jews 
with 269 churches, 202 ministers and 13,683 members; Luther- 
ans, one of our strongest and most influential ecclesiastical 
bodies, with 5,553 churches, 3,132 ministers and 950,868 mem- 
bers; Mennonites with 300 churches, 350 ministers and 50,000 
members; Moravian with 84 churches, 94 ministers and 9,491 
members ; Mormon with 654 churches, 3,906 ministers and 1 10,- 
377 members ; Swedenborgian with 93 churches, 89 ministers 
and 3,994 members ; Reformed (Dutch) with 509 churches, 545 
ministers and 80,167 members; Reformed (German) with 1,405 
churches, 748 ministers and 155,857 members ; Shaker with 18 
churches, 68 ministers and 2,400 members; Unitarian with 335 
churches, 394 ministers and 17,960 members; United Brethren 
with 4,524 churches, 2,196 ministers and 157,835 members; 
Universalists with 959 churches, 729 ministers and 27,429 mem- 



190 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



bers; Winebrennerians with 400 churches, 350 ministers and 
30,000 members. 

Here is a Protestant membership in excess of 10,000,000, 
which added to the CathoHc adherents makes over 16,000,000 
pledged Christians. This is a large proportion of our popula- 
tion, and an influence which is stronger than any other in mouldr- 
ing thought and shaping morals. 




NOTABLE AMERICAN STATESMEN OF THE XIXth CENTURY. 



PART II. 

RULING THE REPUBLIC 




RULING NATIONALLY; 

OR, 

THE MACHINERY OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

HE THREE GREAT BRANCHES.— Our government 
is divided by the Constitution into three distinct branches 
or departments, the Legislative, the Executive, and the 
Judicial. The existence of these departments is neces- 
sary for the energy and stability of the government. 
Their separation is necessary for the preservation of public lib- 
erty and private rights. When they are all united in one person 
or one body of men, that government is a despotism. The first 
resolution adopted by the Convention which framed the Con- 
stitution was that " a national government ought to be established 
consisting of a supreme legislative , judiciary and executive y 

THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 
This department consists of the Senate and the House of 
Representatives, and these two are called the Congress. The 
Senate is sometimes called the Upper House, and the House of 
Representatives the Lower House. The latter is also known as 
" the House," in contrast to " the Senate." In the Constitution 
they are spoken of as " each House," the " two Houses," " both 
Houses." The Constitution gives to the Congress the power to 
make all laws, and withholds that power from the other depart- 
ments. It is a representative body, and is supposed to do what the 
people would do if they were assembled in deliberative meeting to 

(191> 



192 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

enact laws for their government. The Congress meets in regular 
session, according to the Constitution, on the first Monday in 
December, each year ; but the President may call extra sessions 
when necessary. The two Houses not only meet on the same 
day, but neither can adjourn without the consent of the other for 
more than three days at a time, nor to any other place than that 
of regular meeting, now the capitol at Washington. The Presi- 
dent may however change the place of meeting to avoid plague 
or other danger. Congresses themselves run by odd years, like 
the administrations. The 48th Congress met in first regular 
session Dec. (ist Monday), 1883. This first session of any Con- 
gress is called " the long session." It may end at any time dur- 
ing the next year, prior to December. The " long session " 
usually runs to July or August of an even year. The second 
session of a Congress is called the " short session." It meets in 
December of an even year and en9s by limitation on March 3d 
of an odd year. Thus elections for President and for Congress- 
men occur in even years. Administrations and Congresses 
begin and end in odd years. 

THE SENATE.— This branch or House of Congress is com- 
posed of two Senators from each State. There are now thirty- 
eight States. Multiply 38 by 2 and you have the number of 
United States Senators. It seems somewhat unfair that a large 
and populous State like New York should have no greater 
representation in the National Senate than small States like 
Delaware and Rhode Island. But this result was one of the 
necessary compromises of the Constitution. The Senate is built 
on the theory of State representation, the House of Representa- 
tives on the theory of popular or people representation. Senators 
are elected for six years. No man can be a Senator who is not 
thirty years old, who has not been a citizen of the United States 
for nine years, and who is not an inhabitant of the State for 
which he is chosen. 

The Senate is regarded as a more dignified and honorable 
body than the House of Representatives. Its very name (from 
senatus, which is from senex, o\^ presumes an older and graver 
membership. It is further removed from the populace. It does 



RULING NATIONALLY. I93 

not need to represent the fickle will of the masses, but the higher 
and more deliberative wish of the States, which are its constit- 
uency. As a law-making branch of the Congress it is equal 
with the House, except that it cannot originate bills'^ for raising 
revenue. Revenue bills must, according to the Constitution, 
originate in the House of Representatives. f No bill can become 
a law till it has received the approval of a majority in both 
Houses, and been approved by the President. 

The Senate has powers beyond those which are purely legisla- 
tive, and is therefore stronger in this respect than the lower 
House. It is a part of the Executive branch for the purpose of 
making appointments to office. All executive nominations for 
office must be approved by the Senate before they are final. 
The Senate may reject such nominations and compel the Presi- 
dent to send in other names. When the Senate is sitting to de- 
liberate on the President's nominations it is said to be in Execu- 
tive session. So the Senate in connection with the President 
constitutes the Treaty-making power of the government. When 
the Senate is sitting to deliberate on Treaties or other delicate 
matters it is said to be in " secret session." Further the Senate 
is the court before which impeachment cases are heard and by 
which the)^ are determined. The Vice-President of the United 
States is the presiding officer of the Senate, but has no vote ex- 
cept when there is a tie. This presiding officer is called the 
President of the Senate. If the Vice-President should die or 
his seat be vacant for any cause, the Senate elects a President 
from its own members. As a matter of fact the Senate is never 

*^' An act when first presented to either House and up until the time of its passage 
is called a " bill." After iis passage it is an "act" or "law." Acts which are 
merely declarative of the intent of either House and binding on it, but which do not 
bear directly on the people at large, are called " Resolutions; " if passed by both 
Houses and binding on both they are called " Joint Resolutions." 

f The jurisdiction of the two Houses over this point gives rise to frequent contro- 
versies. During the 2d session of 47th Congress the Senate originated, debated and 
passed a Tariff bill on its own account. This proceeding was objected to by the 
House, but sfs the final bill (the act of March 3, 1883) was the result of a confer- 
ence of both Houses, much time was saved by the Senate action and no harm was 
done. 

13 



194 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

without a President pro tern., that officer being important as a 
possible President of the United States, in case of the death, resig- 
nation, removal or disability of both President and Vice-President. 
A two-third vote of all the Senators present is required to ratify 
a treaty or convict a person impeached. 

ELECTION OF SENATORS.— Th^ place at which United 
States Senators shall be chosen must be determined by the. 
States. This place, usually the State Capitol, cannot be changed 
by the Congress. But the Congress may fix the time and manner 
of electing Senators. It has done so. When a vacancy is about 
to exist by reason of expiration of a senatorial term, the State 
Legislature chosen next preceding' such vacancy must, on the 
second Tuesday after its meeting, proceed to elect a Senator in 
Congress. 

Each branch of the Legislature selects, by a majority of all 
the viva voce votes cast, a candidate for Senator. The next day 
after the above-named second Tuesday at 12 M., both Houses 
meet in joint assembly. If it is found they have both nominated 
the same candidate, he shall be declared the Senator. If they 
have not, then the two Houses shall sit in joint assembly, meet- 
ing each day at 12 M., and casting at least one vote daily, till a 
Senator is chosen by a majority of the votes of said joint 
assembly, cast viva voce, a majority of both Houses being 
present. 

Vacancies by death or resignation are filled in the same 
way by the first Legislature which meets, finding such vacancy. 

The Governor of the State certifies such election, under the 
seal of the State and signed by his Secretary of State, to the 
President of the Senate of the United States. Both the Senate and 
House of Representatives are the final judges of the qualifications 
of their own members. In the first Senate one-third of the mem- 
bers were selected by lot for two years, another third for four, an- 
other third for six. This was to give effect to the clause in the 
Constitution making one-third of the Senate elective every two 
years. . 

SENATE MACHINERY.— ThQ Senate employs for its com- 
fortable working a Secretary of the Senate at a salary of ^4,896 ; 



RULING NATIONALLY. 195 

a Chief Clerk, $^,ooo; a Librarian; and a corps of regular 
clerks, committee clerks, pages, pasters and folders, numbering 
quite one hundred. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.— Known also as " The 
Lower House " and as the " House." It is equal and co-ordi- 
nate with the Senate as a branch of Congress, but has the sole 
power to originate revenue bills, and to move in cases of im- 
peachment. Its bill of impeachment i^ like the bill of indict- 
ment found by a grand jury, and is tried before the Senate sit- 
ting as a court. Bills and resolutions pass in the House, as 
in the Senate, by a majority. Though the Senate and House 
make the Congress, a custom has grown up of designating the 
members of the House as M. C.'s (Members of Congress) and 
members of the Senate as Senators. 

ELECTION OF M. OS.— A member of the House must 
be twenty-five years of age, a citizen of the United States for 
seven years, and an inhabitant of the State in which he is chosen. 
He is elected for two years, and by the qualified electors in each 
State. His salary like that of Senator is ;^5,ooo per year.* 

The Congress fixes the number of members of the House 
after each decennial census, as required by the Constitution. 
Its act to this effect generally goes into operation on the third 
of March of the third year after the census. Thus the act for 
this purpose after the census of 1880 went into effect on and 
after March 3, 1883. The Congress enacted, Feb. 25, 1882, that, 
until another act after another census, the number of members 
of the House should be 325. This number was then divided 
among the States in proportion to their population. It was 

* The salary of a Congressman was $S per day up to 1856. From that time to 
1866 it was ^3,000 per year. It remained at this figure till act of March 3, 1873, 
increased it to ^$7, 500 per year. This act increased the President's salary from ^25,- 
cxx) to j^50,ooo, and made a general increase of salaries among Department 
officers. It was very unpopular and was followed by the act of Jan. 20, 1874, re- 
ducing the salary of Congressmen to ^$5,000. It made material reductions in all 
the raised salaries. The President's salary remained at ^50,000. In addition to 
^5,000 per year members of Congress (Senators and M. C.'s} are entitled to mile- 
age. This has always remained at forty cents a mile, on the principle, be it charit- 
ably supposed, that they all go to the capitol by stage-coach as of yore. 



196 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

found that each State was entitled to the following number of 
members : 

MEMBERS OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
j4s Apportioned {after March 3, 1883) Under Census of 1880. 



Alabama 8 

Arkansns 5 

California 6 

Colorado I 

Connecticut 4 

Delaware i 

Florida 2 

Georgia lo 

Illinois 20 

Indiana 13 

Iowa II 

Kansas 7 

Kentucky 1 1 

Louisiana 6 

Maine 4 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts 12 

Michigan 1 1 

Minnesota 5 



Mississippi 7 

Missouri I4 

Nebraska 3 

Nevada i 

New Hampshire 2 

New Jersey 7 

New York 34 

North Carolina 9 

Ohio 21 

Oregon i 

Pennsylvania 28 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina '. 7 

Tennessee 10 

Texas 11 

Vermont , 2 

Virginia 10 

West Virginia 4 

Wisconsin 9 

Total 325 

Quota for a Representative 154,325 

This act is called the apportionment act,* though the final 
work of apportionment is left to the States, each of which is 
required to divide itself into as many Congressional districts of 
contiguous territory, and containing as nearly as may be the 
number of inhabitants ascertained to be a quota or ratio, as the 
Congress has assigned to each. Thus by the above table New 
York has thirty-four members of Congress between the years 
1883 and 1893, under the census of 1880. Her Legislature must 

* The first apjiortionment was made by the Convention which framed the Consti- 
tution. It gave to N. H. 3 ; Mass. 8; R. I. i ; Conn. 5 ; N. Y. 6; N. J. 4; Pa. 8; 
Del. I ; Md. 6 ; Va. 10 ; N. C. 5 ; S. C. 5 ; Ga. 3, or 65 in all. The ratio of represen- 
tation was 30,000. After the census of 1790, the act of 1792 fixed the ratio at 33,- 
000; the act of 1803 left it at 33,000; the act of 1811 at 35,000; the act of 1822 at 
40,000; the act of 1832 at 47,700; the act of 1842 at 70,680. Up to this time the 
apportionment acts only fixed a ratio of representation. The number of members 
was ascertained by dividing this ratio into the total population. But the act of 1852 
fixed instead the number of members of the House at 233, leaving the ratio to be 
ascertained by dividing 233 into the population of 1850. This made the ratio 
93,423. And so the ratio after i86o was 127,381 ; after 1870, 131,425; and after 
1880, as above. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 197 

divide the State into thirty-four Congressional districts, each of 
which is to contain as nearly as may be 154,325 inhabitants. 
To get at the electoral vote of each State you must add the two 
Senators to the number of Representatives in the House. If a 
Congressional election takes place in a State before it has made 
its apportionment, and said State shall be entitled to one or more 
members of Congress than it had under the previous apportion- 
ment, the additional member or members may, for the time 
being, be elected on the general State ticket as " Members of 
Congress at Large." 

The States formerly voted for Congressmen at their annual 
State elections, no matter when they came off Now, under an 
act of Congress (March 3, 1875) prescribing a "uniform time 
for holding Congressional elections," they are all required to 
hold them 'on the " Tuesday next after the first Monday in No- 
vember," of every second year, and all will do so as soon as they 
can amend their Constitutions to that effect. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE.— Tht chief officer 
of the House is called the Speaker. He is elected by the mem- 
bers, at the beginning of each Congress. His election is a 
necessary part of organization. His compensation is ;^8,ooo, 
because his duties are more arduous than those of the average 
member, and his knowledge of parliamentary law and usages 
supposed to be greater. He may become President, for should 
there be no President, nor Vice-President, nor President of the 
Senate pro tern., the Speaker of the House becomes Acting Pres- 
ident. 

The most important officer of the House, after the Speaker, is 
the Clerk of the House, salary ;^4,500. Indeed, it would not be 
amiss to call him the most important officer of the House, for 
upon him devolves the duty of preparing a list of the members 
elected to each Congress, and only the members on this list are 
entitled to participate in the work of organization. If names are 
wrongfully omitted, the matter must be settled by regular hearing 
before the House, or a Committee on Elections, under the rule 
that each House is the judge of the qualification of its own 
members. 



198 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

TERRITORIAL DELEGATES.— "E^ch organized Territory 
is entitled to a representative in Congress (two, if the population 
warrants, though generally Territories become States by that 
time), elected by the qualified electors thereof, the same as 
Members of Congress. This Territorial representative is called 
a Delegate. He is entitled to join in debate but cannot vote. 
His pay is ;^5,000 per year and mileage. 

HOUSE MACHINERY.— TXiQ House machinery is more 
elaborate than that of the Senate. The Clerk of the House has 
a large corps of assistants, as has the Sergeant-at-Arms. The 
reading clerks, committee clerks, post-office clerks, library em- 
ployes, door-keepers, messengers, pasters and folders, etc., num- 
ber from 250 to 3CK). 

MAKING LAIVS.— Both Houses rely largely on their Com- 
mittees to prepare bills and resolutions, before they are presented 
for discussion and final passage. These Committees are very 
numerous, and are organized presumably with reference to their 
fitness for the subjects referred to them. After the Speaker of 
the House is elected, his first important business is to appoint 
the Standing Committees of the House. The President of the 
Senate does the same for the Senate, at the opening of each new 
Congress. When a bill is introduced, it is read for the informa- 
tion of the members. If it is not opposed or rejected, it is said 
to be passed to a second reading, which may be the next or some 
subsequent day. On that second reading the question comes up 
shall it be committed to one of the above Standing Committees, 
the subject of the bill* suggesting the proper Committee. Some- 
times the nature of the bill is such as to require its reference to 
a special or select Committee. When bills of great moment are 
under discussion, the House resolves itself into a Committee of 
the Whole, on account of the greater freedom of debate then' 
allowed. After the Committee to which a bill has been referred 
are done deliberating on it, it is reported back to the House 
either adversely or favorably, and with or without amendments. 
Then the question is on its engrossment (copying in a fair hand) 
for third reading. After being engrossed (if it has been so 
ordered), it is read a third time and the question is on its pas- 



RULING NATIONALLY. 199 

sage. If passed, it is signed by the presiding officer and sent to 
the other House, where it goes through the same routine. 
Sometimes amendments are added on its passage. If so, it is 
sent back to the House where it originated. If these are agreed 
to, it is repassed there. If not, and the bill is important, the dis- 
agreement between the two Houses is settled, if possible, in what 
is called a Committee of Conference ; that is, a Committee com- 
posed of members from both Houses. This Committee reports 
to both Houses the results of its deliberations, and if in the 
shape of a bill, it is again on its final passage in both Houses as 
before. When passed by both Houses, it is sent to the Presi- 
dent. If he approves it, he signs it, and then it is law. If he 
does not approve it, he sends it back to the House in which it 
originated, with his veto message, where the question is, " Shall 
it pass notwithstanding the President's veto?" Unless it is sus- 
tained by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses it cannot become 
a law over the veto. If so sustained it becomes law in spite of 
the veto. The President has ten days in which to consider a 
bill before he signs or vetoes it. Many bills are crowded on the 
President within ten days of the adjournment of Congress. 
Those he favors he returns with his approval in time, and so 
with those he does not favor, if he wishes his reasons for a 
veto to become public. But sometimes he does not return the 
bill at all in time for adjournment, and thus kills it. This is 
called the " pocket veto," the bill being in the President's pocket, 
as it were. It is not regarded as a very manly way of exercising 
the veto power, but must be excused sometimes to rush of busi- 
ness during the closing days of a session. Resolutions and 
Joint Resolutions follow the routine of Bills. 

CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY.— An act of April 24, 1800, 
appropriated ;^5,ooo to buy necessary books for Members of the 
Congress. Act of Jan. 26, 1802, organized The Library of 
Congress, located it in ' a room previously occupied by the 
House of Representatives, created the office of Librarian, made 
him appointive by the President, and limited the use of books to 
Members of Congress and the Departments. Up to 18 14 there 
were only 3,000 volumes in the library. It was burned Aug. 25, 



200 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

1 8 14, with the capitol, by the British. In September, 1 8 14, Jef- 
ferson offered his library of 6,700 volumes, as the nucleus of a 
new library of Congreos, at cost. It was accepted, and the sum 
of |)23,950 paid for it. In 18 18 the annual appropriation to the 
Library was raised to ;^2,ooo a year, and in 1824 to ;^ 5, 000 a 
year. This year it was moved to the central capitol. In 1 851 
it had 55,000 volumes, and again met with a loss by fire of 
35,000 volumes. Starting anew, Congress rebuilt a fire proof 
hall for;^75,ooo, and appropriated ;^75,ooo to buy books. By 
i860 it contained 75,000 volumes, on an annual appropriation of 
^7,000. This was increased to ;^ 10,000 in 186 1. In 1866 it re- 
ceived the 40,000 volumes of the Smithsonian Institute. In 
1867 the Force library was purchased at a cost of ;^ 100,000. It 
contained 60,000 books and articles. 

The Law Department of the Library was constituted by act 
of July 14, 1832. Under an annual appropriation of ;^2,ooo a 
year it has grown from 2,011 volumes to 35,000. 

By act of July 8, 1870, the granting of copyrights was cenrered 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, where two copies of 
each publication entered for copyright must be deposited. This 
has brought an annual addition of 25,000 books, maps, and other 
articles, in duplicate. In January, 1880, the library contained 
365,000 volumes and 120,000 pamphlets, and in 1883, 513,441 
volumes and 165,000 pamphlets. The catalogue alone fills four 
royal octavo volumes. Measures are now being taken to erect 
a new building, which is much needed, the capacity of the 
present one being wholly inadequate. Expenditure for the 
Library is under control of a joint committee of both Houses 
of Congress. The same committee have control of the Botanical 
Garden, which supplies plants, seeds and flowers to Members of 
Congress for public distribution and personal use. 

PUBLIC PRINTING OFFICE.— \]nx:\\ i860 the govern- 
ment hired men to do its printing, and "each House employed a 
printer. The expense got to be so enormous that Congress 
authorized a Government Printing Office, and appropriated 
;^i 50,000 to start it. It was placed under the management of a 
Superintendent of Public Printing, or the Public Printer, whose 



RULING NATIONALLY. 201 

salary is ;^3,6oo. This officer is selected by Congress. He has 
power to purchase all necessary material and employ ample 
help. He must report to Congress each session the work done, 
the expense incurred, the number of hands employed, the full 
and exact condition of the establishment The office is now the 
largest and best appointed in the world. It prints and binds all 
public books and papers, except where otherwise ordered. The 
number of these is simply enormous, and many of them of very 
little use. The force employed consists of six clerks, and some 
1,500 hands. The cost of work done in the office must not ex- 
ceed that of private printing offices in Washington. 

THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

The language of the Constitution is, Art. II. Sec. i : " The 
executive power shall be vested in a President of the United 
States .of America. He shall hold his office during the term of 
four years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the 
same term, be elected as follows." 

Before showing how he is elected let it be said that he is 
sometimes called " The Executive," and " The Chief Magistrate 
of the Nation." The Congress (Legislative Branch) legislates, 
that is, makes the laws ; the President (Executive Branch) exe- 
cutes or enforces the laws ; the Supreme, Circuit and District 
Courts (Judicial Branch) adjudge, expound, interpret, pronounce, 
and, with the civic machinery at their command, also execute 
the laws. 

PRESIDENT-MAKING.— Th^ people do not vote directly 
for the President and Vice-President but for Presidential electors, 
whose number in each State is equal to the number of the 
representatives (Senators and M. C.'s) in the Congress from that 
State.* The President must be thirty-five years of age and a 
native of the United States. At first the political parties desig- 

* At first the Legislatures of the respective States generally made choice of the 
electors. This was gradually abandoned, and by -1824 most of the Slates used the 
popular vote. In 1828 the popular vote of the States became an element of com- 
putation. South Carolina retained the method of electing electors by her Legisla- 
ture till 1868. This word elector is misleading. Any qualified voter is an elector. 
But it is in the Constitution and besides has the sanction of long custom. 



202 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



nated their candidates for President in Congressional Caucus. 
This method began to give way to the modern system of Na- 
tional Nominating Conventions with a platform of principles 
about 1832-36. The first four Presidential elections were con- 
ducted under Art. II., Sec. i, Clause 3, of the Constitution, which 
did not require a separate nomination for Vice-President, but 
that each elector should vote for two persons, not from the same 
State, the one having the highest number of votes to be Presi- 
dent, the one having the next highest to be Vice-President. In 
the election of 1800, Jefferson and Burr had each 73 votes, and 
the contest had to be settled- in the House. At the previous 
election of 1796, John Adams, Federal, had 71 votes, Thomas 
Jefferson, Republican, 68 votes. Here was a President of one 
party, and a Vice-President of another. It was evident that 
the clause was defective, and it was amended in 1804 ^7 the 
adoption of the 12th Amendment. 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.—'' Each State shall appoint, 
in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number 
of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress ; 
but no Senator, or Representative, or person holding an office 
of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an 
elector," Cons. Art. II., Sec. I, Clause 2. 

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.— Und^x the above article,' 
and the apportionment in accordance with the Census of 1880, the 
Electoral Colleges of the respective States contain electors, as 
follows : 



Alabama lo 

Arkansas 7 

California 8 

Colorado 3 

Connecticut 



Maryland 8 

Massachusetts 14 

Michigan 13 

Minnesota 7 



6 I Mississippi. 



Delaware 3 I Missouri l6 

Florida 4 j Nebraska 5 



Georgia 12 

Illinois 22 

Indiana 15 

Iowa 13 

Kansas 9 

Kentucky 13 

Louisiana 8 

Maine 6 



Nevada 3 

New Hampshire 4 

New Jersey 9 

New York 36 

North Carolina n 

Ohio 23 

Oregon 3 

Pennsylvania 30 



RULING NATIONALLY. 203 



Rhode I?^land 4 

South Carolina 9 

Tennes.-^ee 12 

Texas 13 

Total 401 

Requiring, as between two candidates, 201 to elect. 



Vermont 4 

Virginia 12 

West Virginia 6 

Wisconsin 1 1 



CHOOSING OF ELECTORS.— ^\Qctors of President and 
Vice-President are chosen in each State on the Tuesday next 
after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year suc- 
ceeding every election of a President or Vice-President. This 
is the Presidential election. 

The number of electors must equal the whole number of 
Representatives and Senators to which the several States are by 
law entitled at the time when the President and Vice-President 
to be chosen come into office. But where no apportionment of 
Representatives has been made after a Census, at the time of 
choosing electors, the number of electors must be according 
to the then existing apportionment of Senators and Representa- 
tives. 

Each State may by law provide for filling any vacancies in 
its electoral college, when such college meets to give its elec- 
toral vote. 

When any State has held an election for electors and has 
failed to make a choice on the day fixed by law, electors may be 
appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the Legislature 
may prescribe. 

•ELECTORAL COLLEGE.— YX^oXors, for each State meet 
and give their votes the first Wednesday in December in the 
year in which they are chosen, at such place in each State .as its 
Legislature directs. 

On the day of meeting, or before, the Governor of each State 
delivers to ^^e electors three certified lists of the names of 
electors of such State. 

The electors vote for President and Vice-President, as the 
Constitution directs in Art. XII. of the Amendments. They then 
make and sign three certificates of the votes given by them, each 
of which contains two distinct lists, one of the votes for Presi- 
dent, the other of votes for Vice-President, and annex to each 



204 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of the certificates one of the lists of electors furnished them by 
the Governor. They seal these certificates, and certify on each 
that it contains the lists of all the votes of such State for Presi- 
dent and Vice-President. One of them must be placed in the 
hands of a person appointed by them, to be delivered by him to 
the President of the Senate, in Washington, before the first 
Wednesday of the ensuing January. The second they forward 
by mail to the President of the Senate. The third they forth- 
with deliver to the judge of the district in which the electors 
assemble. 

If the certificates of any State have not arrived in Washington 
by the first Wednesday in January, the Secretary of State sends 
a messenger for the list deposited with the district judge. 

Congress shall be in session on the second Wednesday in 
February after each meeting of electors, and the certificates, or 
as many as have been received, shall be opened, the votes 
counted, and the persons to fill the offices of President and Vice- 
President ascertained and declared agreeably to the Constitu- 
tion. See Art. XIII., Amendments. 

If there is no President of the Senate at Washington when 
the person to whom the certificates have been entrusted arrives, 
he deposits them with the Secretary of State, to be turned over 
to the President of the Senate as soon as may be. 

The four years term of President and Vice-President begins on 
the fourth of March next succeeding the day on which the votes 
of the electors have been given. As we have seen, this is always 
an odd year, and the election is always on an even year. 

PRESIDENTS DUTIES.— Wq is sworn into office, together 
Avith the Vice-President, on March 4th after his election, and 
usually delivers an inaugural address foreshadowing his policy. 
He communicates annually with the Congress b^ means of a 
formal, written message. Before Jefferson's time the Presidents 
delivered their annual messages in person. Jefferson established 
the custom of communicating by written messages, as in better 
accord with Republican simplicity. The President also com- 
municates with Congress by message at any time during the 
session if he has anything important to say. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 205 

He received, up to 1873, ;^25,ooo salary; since then his salary 
has been ^50,000, with the use of the White House and its fur- 
niture. He is not allowed to receive any other emolument, not 
even a gift, and his salary cannot be raised or lowered during his 
term of office. He is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and 
Navy, may grant pardons except in cases of impeachment, call 
extra sessions of Congress, and change the meeting-place of 
Congress in time of danger or great emergency. 

He has, jointly with the Senate, the treaty-making power and 
the appointing power. He may be impeached and removed 
from office. In case of death, absence or disability the Vice- 
President becomes President. Around him and in the Execu- 
tive office proper are his Private Secretary, Assistant Secretary, 
and a corps of stenographers and clerks, doorkeepers, watch- 
men and ushers. 

But the President's chief body of assistants and advisers is 
made up of the members oT his Cabinet. 

PRESIDENTS CABINET.— C^bm^t means a small room 
in which select or secret councils are held by an executive or 
chief officer of state. The President's Cabinet is not a creation 
of law but of custom. The law merely creates the departments 
or bureaus and authorizes for each a chief, who is appointed by 
the President, by and with the consent of the Senate. These 
departments being important, and a direct means by which the 
President executes the laws, their heads or chiefs are supposed 
to act in concert with the President. To maintain this concert 
they must be frequently called into council or cabinet meeting. 
The chiefs of departments who are now recognized as officers 
of the Cabinet are the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, 
Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Navy, Secretary of Interior, 
Attorney-Geperal, and Postmaster-General, seven in all' Of the 
function of each of these, as heads of their respective depart- 
ments, we shall speak in the proper place. We now speak of 
them only as members of the Cabinet, or President's advisers. 
Their pay, not as Cabinet members, but as heads of their 
departments, is ;^8,ooo a year. As ex officio members of the 
Cabinet they are called into " Cabinet meeting " by the Presi- 



206 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

dent whenever he needs their advice in shaping a poHcy, or in- 
formation from them respecting- the running of their depart- 
ments, though this latter is usually laid before the Congress 
and country in the annual reports of the heads of depart- 
ments. Whenever a head of department, who ranks-as a Cabinet 
officer, cannot agree with the President in his policy, and is 
tenacious of his views, he resigns on the principle that he is no 
longer a proper adviser. The Senate rarely fails to confirm the 
nominations of the President to those department places which 
rank as Cabinet offices, for the reason that he is entitled to the 
privilege of surrounding himself with advisers who are in har- 
mony with his executive views. 

From what we have now learned of the Cabinet, it will be 
understood that it has been a growth. Under Washington's 
administration there were but three department officers who 
ranked as Cabinet members, viz. : Secretary of State, Secretary 
of Treasury and Secretary of War. Naval affairs were then 
under the control of the Secretary of War. The separate Navy 
Department was not organized till April 30, 1798, Adams' ad- 
ministration, when the Cabinet was augmented by the Secretary 
of Navy. The Postmaster-General was a subordinate of the 
Treasury Department till 1829. Though the office of Attorney- 
General was created by act of September 24, 1789, he did not 
rank as a full Cabinet officer till 1841-45, Tyler's administration. 
The Department of Interior was created March 3, 1849, last day 
of Polk's administration, and the Secretary of the Interior be- 
came a Cabinet officer. A list of the Cabinet officers will be 
found under their respective department heads. 

VICE-PRESIDENT.— ThG Constitution says all executive 
power shall be in the President. But when it comes to speaking 
of his qualification and election, it mentions a Vice-President. 
" No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President 
shall be eligible to the office of Vice-President." 12th Amend- 
ment, clause 3. The Vice-President is not endowed with much 
power. His salary is ^8,000. He is presiding officer of the 
Senate, but without a vote, except in case of a tie. In all else 
he is like an alternate, merely an official provision against the 



RULING NATIONALLY. 207 

possibility of being without a President. The Vice-President be- 
comes President in case of the death, resignation, impeachment, 
or disabihty of the latter. This has happened four times in the 
history of our government, when Harrison and Taylor died and 
Lincoln and Garfield were assassinated. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 

CREATIVE ACTS. — There is no mention in the Constitution 
of this . department nor any other belonging to the Executive 
branch of the government. They are all creations of Congress, 
which was endowed with power to pass all laws necessary to 
give effect to the Constitution. At the starting of the govern- 
ment, foreign relations were intricate and momentous. There- 
fore the act of July 27, 1789 (ist Congress, extra session), 
created a Department of Foreign Affairs, whose Secretary should 
attend to correspondence and negotiations with foreign ministers, 
and to such other foreign affairs as the President might order 
and direct. By act of September 15, 1789 (same session), the 
name of this department was changed to Department of State, 
and the chief to Secretary of State, and he was, in addition to 
the above duties, charged with the receipt and publication of the 
laws of Congress, made custodian of the great Seal, and author- 
ized to use it on civil commissions. In 1853 the office of Assist- 
ant Secretary of State was created. 

NATURE AND DUTIES.— Th^ Department of State usu- 
ally heads the list of the Executive Departments. The Secretary 
of State is regarded as the nearest officer to the President, and 
is usually selected on account of the great confidence reposed in 
him as a lawyer, diplomatist and safe political adviser. He is 
sometimes called the President's Premier, or Prime Minister, 
after the English fashion, because he ranks as first of his coun- 
sellors. In monarchies the class of officers we call Secretaries 
are called Ministers. 

The Secretary of State conducts all correspondence with and 
issues all instructions to United States consuls and ministers ; 
negotiates with foreign ministers and representatives on all mat- 
ters they submit, under the direction of the President ; fixes the 



208 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

great seal to all executive commissions ; receives and preserves 
the originals of all bills, orders and resolutions of House or 
Senate ; promulgates and publishes the laws, amendments to the 
Constitution, and all consular and diplomatic information ; lays 
before Congress annually a report of commercial systems 
among nations, treaties, diplomacy and all information touching 
our relations with foreign governments ; grants passports. His 
is indeed an arduous and responsible office. As a cabinet officer 
the President relies on him more than on any other, because of 
the delicacy, often intricacy, of the subjects which come under 
his consideration. Foreign relations are seldom free from 
serious complications, and negligence or blunder might at any 
moment lead to war. 

MACHINERY. — The machinery for working this important 
department is ample and intricate. It consists of a number of 
bureaus, branches and divisions, each of which is designed 
to attend to one of the many duties of the department. 
Thus there is a Diplomatic Bureau, Consular Bureau, Bureau 
of Indexes and Archives, Bureau of Accounts, Librarian, 
Division of Statistics, Bureau of Law, Division of Translations, 
Division of Pardons, Passport Division. 

DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.— ThQ Diplomatic Bureau of the 
Department of State is the centre of the Diplomatic Service of 
the United States. This service embraces Envoys Extraordinary 
and Ministers Plenipotentiary. These high-sounding titles 
designate our most important ministers to foreign countries. 
They, like all our foreign ministers of whatever grade, are ap- 
pointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate. They do not, however, represent the President but 
the entire government. It is to be regretted that a service dedi- 
cated to diplomacy, which is supposably exact and exacting, 
should be so loose in its use of terms. The word Embassador 
has with us none but the most general meaning. It might very 
properly include all that is meant by the above lengthy titles. 
The persons sent abroad to represent the government and who 
are called Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary 
are not only authorized to reside in the country they go to, but 



RULING NATIONALLY. 209 

are fully commissioned to act for our government there. They 
are offices of great dignity and responsibility, and are usually 
filled with men of prudence and knowledge of foreign affairs. 
By the Law of Nations Embassadors, Envoys, Ministers and 
duly accredited representatives of any kind are exempt from 
arrest, imprisonment and prosecution. Violation of the person, 
property or rights of an Embassador in any civilized country 
would be a cause for war on the part of the country offended. 

We have now sixteen Embassadors abroad who rank as 
Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary, viz. : one 
each to France, Germany, Great Britain and Russia, at a salary 
of 117,500 each. One each to Austro-Hungary, Brazil, China, 
Italy, Japan, Mexico and Spain, at a salary of $ 1 2,000 each. One 
each to Central American States, Chili and Peru, at a salary of 
;^ 1 0,000 each. One to Turkey, at a salary of ;^7,500. One to 
Corea, at a salary of ;^5,ooo. They are accredited to the Sover- 
eigns of the countries to which they are sent. 

MINISTERS RES WENT.— These like the former reside 
abroad. By this word " reside " is not meant permanent resi- 
dence, but only until their commissions expire. They do not go 
on a special mission, to return when it is ended. The Resident 
Ministers are instructed and clothed with authority, the same as 
those of a higher grade, but the countries to which they are 
sent being of less importance, and their salaries smaller, they do 
not rank so high. They are one each to Argentine Republic, 
Belgium, United States of Colombia, Hawaiian Islands, Nether- 
lands, Sweden and Norway, and Venezuela, salary ;^7,500 ; and 
one each to Bolivia, Hayti, Denmark, Liberia, Persia, Portugal 
and Switzerland (who are also Consuls-General), salary ;$5,ooo. 
The Minister Resident to Greece, salary ^6,500, also represents 
the country in Roumania and Servia. 

CHARGE D'AFFAIRES.— These are officers like Ministers 
Resident, though not accredited to sovereigns, but to ministers 
of foreign affairs. Their authority is full, but they go to 
countries without intricate diplomacy. One is sent to Paraguay 
and Uruguay, salary ;^5,ooo. 

SECRETARIES OF LEGATION.-— These ar^ usually com- 
14 



1210 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

missioned attendants of the more important ministers and act as 
their secretaries and interpreters. In the absence of their prin- 
cipal they supply his place, and sometimes they are the only 
American representative in a foreign country, as, till lately, the 
Secretary of Legation and Interpreter at Pekin, salary ;^5,ooo. 
There are other Secretaries o{ Legation, as follows : One at 
Constantinople, salary ;^3,500, and one Interpreter, salary ;^3,ooo; 
two at Paris, salaries $2,62$ and ;^2,ooo ; two at Berlin, salaries 
;^2,625 and ;^2,ooo; two at London, salaries $2,625 and ;^2,ooo; 
one at St. Petersburgi, salary 1^2,625 ; one Secretary of Legation 
and one Interpreter at Yedo, Japan, salary ;$2,500 each ; one each 
at Vienna and Rome, salary $3,500; one each at Rio de Janeiro 
and Mexico, salary $1,800; and one at Madrid, salary $3,000. 

CONSULAR SERVICE.— ThQ second Bureau in the State 
Department is the Consular Bureau. It is a large and 
important Bureau, and through its consuls the government 
finds a representation in every important city and country 
in the world. Like Ministers, Envoys and Secretaries of 
Legation, they are appointed by the President and Senate. 
They hear all complaints of American captains, masters, crews 
and passengers, and adjudicate their cases; hear protests of 
American merchants, also of foreigners respecting American 
citizens ; certify to the correctness of all invoices of goods 
shipped to this country ; gather commercial information of the 
country and send it to the Consular Bureau ; take charge of 
deceased Americans, their effects and estates, and properly dis- 
pose of the same. They have no representative or diplomatic 
status, but are nevertheless protected under the Law of Nations, 
the raised flag of the country being their safeguard. They may 
determine all matter of wages for seamen on board American 
ships, receive ships' papers and see that they are .correct, provide 
for sick or destitute seamen and send them home, dismiss crews 
if mutinous or disobedient, settle questions of wreck and salvage, 
ass-ist in defence of American criminals on trial in their jurisdic- 
tion ; and in some countries aid in adjudicating civil disputes. 
There is a full code of laws and instructions for their government. 

They are of three grades. No. i embraces Consuls-General 



RULING NATIONALLY. 



211 



and Consuls with fixed salaries, who are not allowed to transact 
any other business. No. 2 includes those with fixed salaries 
(lower than the first), who are allowed to transact other business. 
No. 3 embraces all who are paid by fees, and allowed to transact 
other business. Some of the third-class find a large profit from 
fees, some find nearly nothing. Besides those in these classes 
there are Commercial Agents and Consular Clerks with similar 
duties and powers. It will be readily seen the Consular Service 
embraces many hundred persons. They are appointed usually 
at the instance of Senators and Representatives, but many 
through the inflluence of commercial men, and for their knowl- 
edge of foreign languages and business usagee. 



SECRETARIES OF STATE. 



Name. Appointed. 

Thomas Jefferson, Va Sept. 26, 1789 

Edmiind Randolph, Va. .Jan. 2, 1794 
Timothy Pickering, Pa. . .Dec. 10, 1795 

John Marshall, Va May 13, 1800 

James Madison, Va Mar. 5, 1801 

Robert Smith, Md Mar. 6, 1809 

James Monroe, Va April 2, 181 1 

JohnQuincy Adams, Mass. Mar. 5, 1817 

Henry Clay, Ky Mar. 7, 1825 

Martin Van Buren, N. Y..Mar. 6, 1829 
Edward Livingston, La. , .May 24, 183 1 

Louis McLane, Del May 29, 1833 

John Forsyth, Ga June 27, 1834 

Daniel Webster, Mass, . . . Mar. 5, 1841 
Hugh S. Legare, S. C. . . .May 9, 1843 
Abel P. Upshur, Va July 24, 1843 



Name, 

John Nelson, Md , 

John C. Calhoun, S. C. . . 
James Buchanan, Pa. . ... 

John M, Clayton, Del 

Daniel Webster, Mass. . . . 
Edward Everett, Mass... . 
William L. Marcy, N. Y. 

Lewis Cass, Mich 

Jeremiah S. Black, Pa . . . 
William H, Seward, N, Y 

E. W. Washburne, 111... 
Hamilton Fish, N. Y.. . . 
William M. Evarts, N. Y 
James G. Blaine, Me 

F. T. Frelinghuysen, N.J. 



Appointed, 
Feb. 29, 1844 
.Mar. 6, 1844 
.Mar. 6, 1845 
Mar. 7, 1849 
July 22, 1850 
.Nov. 6, 1852 
.Mar. 7, 1853 
, Mar. 6, 1857 
.Dec. 17, i860 
.Miir. 5, 1861 
.Mar. 5, 1869^ 
.Mar. II, 1869 
.Mar. 12, 1877 
.Mar. 5, 1 88 1 
.Dec. 12, 1 88 1 



TREASURY DEPARTMENT. 



CREATIVE ACTS.—T\i^ Treasury of the Continental Con- 
gress was conducted under the auspices of a Committee of Con- 
gress. Under the Confederation the office of " Secretary of the 
Treasury " was created by act of Feb. 1 1, 1779. By act of June 
30, 1779, it was resolved into a Board of Commissioners. By 
act of Feb. 7, 1781, the Board of Commissioners gave way to a 
Superintendent of Finance, who was given (Sept. ii, 1781) the 
assistance of a Comptroller, Register, Treasurer and Auditors. 
By act of May 28, 1784, the old Board of Commissioners was 
reinvested with control. This was very changeable legislation 



212 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

respecting an office so important as that of the Treasury, but it 
was characteristic of the Confederation. 

During the first session of Congress, Sept. 2, 1789, our present 
Treasury Department was established with a Secretary of the 
Treasury, Comptroller, Auditor, Treasurer, Register and Assistant 
Secretary. Around this nucleus has been built by repeated acts 
of Congress the present stupendous fabric, whose officials are 
more numerous than those of any other department, whose re- 
sponsibilities are greater, whose existence is inseparable from 
that of the government, whose transactions amount to hundreds 
of millions of dollars a year. 

POWERS AND DUTIES,— AW accounts of the United 
States are settled in the Treasury Department, and there all 
moneys due are received, and owing, paid. 

The transactions of this department date from July i of each 
year. This is called the Fiscal (money) year. No officer or 
clerk in this department is permitted to accept any compensa- 
tion over and above his salary for transacting any business in 
the department, nor can any employe trade in the funds of or 
debts of the United States. 

The chief officer is the Secretary of the Treasury, salary 
;^8,ooo. He is a member of the Cabinet, and is appointed, like 
all department officers, by the President, by and with the con- 
sent of the Senate. He has two Assistant Secretaries at a salary 
of ;^4,500 each. The Secretary must manage the collection of 
all revenue and lay plans for supporting the public credit ; order 
and keep all public accounts ; grant warrants for moneys appro- 
priated by Congress ; audit accounts of receipts and disburse- 
ments ; collect all commercial statistics ; report annually to Con- 
gress, or whenever called upon, his methods of management, 
results and recommendations. 

For his assistance in the discharge of these multifarious and 
responsible duties he has a corps of officers, clerks and assistants 
which number over 3,000. These are all at work in the follow- 
ing subdepartments, bureaus or divisions : 

FIRST ASSISTANT. — This officer supervises all the work 
relating to Appointments ; Public Moneys ; Revenue Marine ; 



RULING NATIONALLY. 213 

Stationery, Printing and Blanks ; Loans and Currency ; Bureau 
of Engraving and Printing ; Bureau of the Mint. 

SECOND ASSISTANT supervises all the work belonging 
to the Division of Customs ; Special Agents ; Navigation ; In- 
ternal Revenue ; Appropriations, Warrants and Estimates ; Super- 
vising Architect; Marine Hospital Supervision; Bureau of 
Statistics ; Inspector-General of Steam-vessels. 

CHIEF CLERK'S OFFICE has supervision of all the 
Treasury buildings, their furniture, repairs, mails, horses, wagons, 
working property. 

APPOINTMENTS. — This division supervises all appoint- 
ments and removals in the department, the Customs Service, In- 
ternal Revenue, and other branches of the Treasury Department ; 
prepares the Treasury Register (Blue Book) ; and attends to 
matters of estimates, pay-rolls, etc. 

WARRANTS.— 1:\\& Division of Warrants, Estimates and 
Appropriations issues Warrants for the payment of Public 
Moneys ; keeps Sinking Fund, Public Debt and Pacific R. R. 
accounts; account of Appropriations and Estimates therefor; 
states annual expenditures and monthly statement of debt; 
keeps Financial Statistics. 

PUBLIC MONEYS. — This division supervises the sub- 
Treasuries and National Banks, and enforces the laws and regu- 
lations respecting them. 

CUSTOMS. — The Division of Customs hears and determines 
all questions of tariff laws and regulations arising in the Customs 
Districts or Consular service. The Commissioner of Customs 
makes final revision of the accounts of Customs officers from all 
the ports of the country. 

INTERNAL REVENUE.— This division, uniting with it 
that of Navigation, has charge of all questions arising in the 
Marine service and relating to, or growing out of, the collection 
of Internal Revenue. The actual work of collection belongs to 
the Bureau of Internal Revenue. 

LOANS AND CURRENCY is a division which supervises 
the National loans, the redemption of bonds ; preparations for 
printing bonds ; delivery and redemption of bonds and their can- 



214 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBrjC. 

cellation and destruction. In its records a U. S. bond can be 
traced from the paper-mill to the furnace. 

REVENUE MARINE SERVICE is an adjunct of the Cus- 
toms service. It consists of 37 fast revenue cutters for the use 
of Customs officers, that they may board vessels, make searches, 
collect duties, and enforce the laws against smuggling. 

STATIONERY, PRINTING AND BLANKS.— This divi- 
sion purchases, prints, binds and distributes books and blanks for 
use in the subdivisions of the Treasury Department. 

SPECIAL AGENTS. — This division supervises the work of 
the thirty odd special ag«ents of the Treasury who go, armed 
with full authority, into the Customs Districts to note the man- 
ner of doing work, correct wrong methods, and secure uniform 
enforcement of the laws. 

SECRET SERVICE. — This division superintends the work 
of detecting and punishing counterfeiters of the National bonds, 
coin and currency. It is supported by annual appropriations 
devoted to this secret, detective work. 

CAPTURED PROPERTY.— TKxs division has in charge all 
the records, archives and property captured or abandoned during 
the Rebellion. It furnishes all information to claimants or for 
historical and legal purposes which is sought through it. 

ENGRAVING AND PRINTING— Iht engraving and 
printing of government bonds. United States notes, securities, 
stamps, and whatever represents value, is in charge of this Bu- 
reau. It embraces many subdivisions, and is regarded as the 
completest establishment of its kind in the world. 

BUREAU OF THE MINT supervises the work of all the 
United States Mints and Assay offices. Its chief officer is the 
Director of the Mint, salary $/\.,^oo. The United States Mints 
are located at Philadelphia, Pa.; San Francisco, Cal.; New Or- 
leans, La.; Carson, Nevada. The Assay offices are located at 
Denver, Col.; New York City; Helena, Montana; Boise City, 
Idaho ; and Charlotte, N. C. The Assay offices do not coin 
money, but reduce gold and silver to ingots or bars, and stamp 
the fineness or quality on each bar. In addition to overseeing 
the workings of the respective Mints and Assay offices, the 



RULING NATIONALLY. 215 

Director of the Mint must certify to the Secretary of Treasury 
each year the actual value of the coins of every nation. The 
officers directly in charge of the different Mints are called 
Superintendents of Mints. 

SUPERVISING ARCHITECT.— TKis office was created in 
1853, to obviate the difficulty of erecting the large and numerous 
public buildings through irresponsible and unskilled commis- 
sions. Before the creation of the office there was no uniformity 
in public buildings, but little taste, and poor adaptation to the 
purposes intended. The duties of, the office are to select proper 
sites, submit plans and estimates, and carry on the work of con- 
struction. The Supervising Architect ts assisted by an able corps 
of clerks and draughtsmen numbering nearly 100. 

STEAM-VESSEL INSPECTION.— T^q head of this ser- 
vice is the Supervising Inspector-General of Steam- Vessels. 
His duty is to enforce all the laws relating to the inspection of 
steam-vessels. There are local inspectors and officers in all the 
commercial cities of the country. 

LIFE-SA VI NG SERVICE.— Th^ Superintendent of this ser- 
vice has charge of all the life-saving stations on our coasts. 
This service in its present form dates from 1878. It is a growing 
and important service, and is at present conducted at an annual 
expense of ;$500,ooo, with a force of some 1,400 men, mostly 
hardy surfmen, who lead an exposed and dangerous life at points 
on our coast where wrecks are most likely to occur. 

STATISTICS. — The Chief of this Bureau receives, arranges 
and publishes the statistics of finance, coinage, immigration, 
population, railroads, minerals, agriculture, manufacture, and 
domestic and foreign commerce of the United States, sent from 
every authorized source. 

LIGHT-HOUSES. — The Secretary of the Treasury is Presi- 
dent of the Light-House Board. This Board is composed of 
nine men, chosen for their scientific knowledge. They have in 
charge the work of lighting the coasts of oceans and rivers. It 
was organized in 1852. Their labors involve the proper lighting 
of 5,000 miles of Atlantic coast, 1,500 of Pacific coast, 3,000 miles 
of lake coast, and 5,500 miles of river coast. Thus far about 



216 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

12,000 light-houses or stations have been erected; 3,000 buoys, 
420 day beacons, 54 fog signals, and 25 light-ships have been 
placed in position. 

MARINE HOSPITALS. — This service is under a Supervis- 
ing Surgeon-General. It was established July 16, 1798, and re- 
organized in 1870 and 1875. It is designed to afford protection 
to sick and disabled seamen, v^ath a view to encouraging fit per- 
sons to become sailors. The terms of enlistment require a pay- 
ment of forty cents a month from seamen's wages. This goes 
to the government. As a consideration for this the government 
cares for them when sick or disabled at one of its Marine Hos- 
pitals, or, where none exist, at any designated hospital. It is an 
important service, and has charge of as many as 20,000 invalid 
seamen annually. 

FIRST COMPTROLLERS Office has charge of all civil 
accounts except those relating to the Custom.s and Postal Ser- 
vice. The office was established September 2, 1789. The First 
Comptroller checks the work of the First and Fifth Auditor and 
the Commissioner of the Land Office. 

SECOND COMPTROLLERS Office, established March 
3, 1 8 17, revises and checks all the accounts of the Second, Third 
and Fourth Auditors. 

BUREAU OF COMPTROLLER.— IhQ Comptroller of the 
Currency has the responsible duty of enforcing all laws relating 
to the issue and regulation of the National Currency. He is 
custodian of the plates from which notes are printed, supervises 
the naming and .starting of National banks, attends to their clos- 
ing operations when they fail, reports to Congress annually con- 
cerning the entire workings of the National banking system. The 
office was established in February, 1863, and was rendered 
necessary by the National Currency system which came into 
existence at that time. 

A UDITORS. — The accounts of the Treasury Department of 
whatever kind must reach final settlement under the hands of 
Auditors. There are six of these, and each is the head of a 
separate office. The numerous accounts are subdivided accord- 
ing to nature or subject, and each Auditor receives those which 
by law or custom fall under his jurisdiction. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 217 

TREASURER. — The office of United States Treasurer was 
established by act of September 2, 1789. The Treasurer re- 
ceives and accounts for all public moneys arising from customs, 
internal revenue, sale of lands, or whatever source. The United 
States Treasury is not only the Treasury at Washington, but the 
sub-Treasuries located for convenience at New York, Boston, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, San 
Francisco and St. Louis. It comprises also certain banks which 
are designated as depositaries of public moneys, though these 
last cannot receive any moneys arising from customs. The 
sub-Treasuries are officered by Treasurers, who give bond and 
are responsible outside of the United States Treasurer at Wash- 
ington. This is why they are called Independent Treasuries. 

REGISTER OF TREASURY.— While the United States 
Treasurer is the officer who actually handles the money and is 
responsible for its safe-keeping, the accounts of receipts and dis- 
bursements are under the supervision of the Register. This 
office was created by the same act as the Treasurer. 

INTERNAL REVENUE BUREAU— The establishment 
of a system of Internal Revenue, made necessary by the civil 
war, gave rise to a Bureau devoted to the supervision of the sys- 
tem. Its chief is Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The 
Bureau was established by act of July i, 1862. In it centre 
the accounts of the Collectors of Internal Revenue, who are 
the officers appointed to make actual collections in the Revenue 
Districts into which the entire country has been divided. The 
Bureau consists of several sub-divisions devoted to Law, Ac- 
counts, Agents, Stamps, Tobacco and Distilled Spirits. 

COAST SURVEV.—lnstitutGd Feb. 10, 1807, for mapping 
the coasts, rivers, and harbors of the United States, locating 
rocks, shoals, and shallows, and making charts of the soundings. 
The work is under the supervision of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, but is actively prosecuted by a Superintendent of 
Coast Survey. 

_ BOARD OF HEALTH.— This body was created by act of 
March 3, 1879. It is composed of seven members. Their duty 
is to co-operate with similar Boards in the States, and to act in- 



218 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

dependently, for the purpose of finding out how epidemics origi- 
nate, and what will prevent them. 

CUSTOMS SERVICE. — Custom Houses are of course only 
found at the points where goods from foreign ports are landed. 
These are called Ports of Entry. They are officered, in ports 
of first rank, by a Collector of the Port, who is responsible for 
the execution of the tariff laws and all moneys collected as 
duties on imported goods. He is also the custodian of the gov- 
ernment buildings and property at the respective ports. His 
work is supervised and checked by a Naval Officer of the Port. 
He is assisted by an Appraiser of the Port, whose duty it is to 
ascertain the nature and true value of all goods imported. He 
is further assisted by Weighers who weigh goods paying a 
specific rate of duty, and by Gangers who gauge all liquids on 
which there is a duty. The Inspectors are the officers who 
police the wharves and ships and see that no goods are landed 
except those for which the Collector has issued a permit. The 
Surveyor of the Port has immediate charge of the Inspectors 
and assigns them to duty, though he does not appoint them. 
The heads of the Customs Service are appointed by the Presi- 
dent, the Deputies and Clerks by the Secretary of the Treasury. 
Moneys arising from customs in the respective Districts are de- 
posited in the sub-treasuries, and thence find their way into the 
central treasury. All customs accounts, statistics, etc., are re- 
ported to the Secretary of the Treasury. 

Of late years the Customs Service has been extended from 
sea-coast ports to inland cities. Thus Cincinnati, St. Louis, and 
other inland cities are Ports of Entry. Goods intended for 
Inland Ports are unloaded directly from the ship into sealed cars 
and carried to the Inland Port as if the ocean voyage were con- 
tinued. There they are entered, appraised, and assessed with 
duty. 

INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE.— Uke that of Cus- 
toms, the active work of this service is done in the Internal 
Revenue Districts. The entire country was divided into some 
1 20 Districts, to each of which was assigned a Collector, depu- 
ties, and a corps of store-keepers, gaugers, etc. This was when 



RULING NATIONALLY. 219 

(l 862-1 882) the Internal Revenue laws were in full vigor. Since 
the revenue taxes have been lowered, and the number of taxable 
articles reduced, many of these Districts have been consolidated, 
and ere long the whole system will pass away. 

Customs duties and Internal Revenue taxes are the chief 
sources of government income. But it also receives a large 
income from the sale of public lands. These sales were con- 
ducted under the auspices of the Treasury Department till 1849, 
when they were transferred to the Department of the Interior, 
where we will speak of them and of the homestead law. 

NATIONAL BANKS.— SNh^n the government first started, 
a National bank was deemed necessary to act as its financial 
agent. One was chartered in 1 791 for twenty years. Attempts 
to revive the charter in 1811 failed, owing to the opposition of 
those who construed the Constitution narrowly. In 18 16, after 
the war of 1 81 2, when the country was heavily in debt and in 
need of a steady finance, another National bank was chartered 
for twenty years. This was the bank which President Jackson 
fought so determinedly and finally drove out of existence. All 
subsequent attempts to establish a similar bank or to secure a 
uniform currency failed till 1 863, when the exigency of civil 
war eventuated in, first, an issue of notes (greenbacks) directly 
by the government ; and, second, the establishment of the 
National banking system. The government had to use its 
own credit in order to exist. Could it so use it as to provide a 
uniform currency and at the same time relieve itself of the 
trouble and expense of acting as banker for the entire people ? 
This was the problem which the National banking system was 
to solve. The National Banking Act is an elaborate one, but by 
its provisions any number of persons not less than five may start 
a National Bank by (i) certifying to the Comptroller of the Cur- 
rency, a name ; (2) a place ; (3) the amount of capital stock 
(which cannot be less than ^50,000) and number of shares ; (4) 
names and residences of the shareholders, and number of shares 
held by each; (5) that they seek the benefits of the National 
Banking Act ; (6) the time when they intend to begin banking. 

These being approved, the Comptroller grants a certificate of 



220 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

incorporation, with the right to use a seal, and to engage in 
legitimate banking business for twenty years from the passage 
of the act. Every shareholder is personally liable for the debts 
of the bank to the amount of his stock. But as yet the bank 
has no bills or notes. In order to obtain these it must buy 
interest-bearing United States bonds to an amount not less than 
one-third of the paid-up stock of the bank, but the amount need 
not be in excess of ;^50,000. These are deposited in the United 
States Treasury. Circulating notes, engraved and printed in the 
Treasury Department, are then issued to the bank, to the value 
of the bonds deposited, less ten per cent. If ;^5o,ooo in bonds 
have been deposited, ^45,000 in circulating notes are issued in 
different denominations.* Should the bank fail the deposited 
bonds are sold, and with the proceeds the notes are redeemed. 
The fact that there is a margin of ten per cent, between the 
notes and the security for them, and the additional fact that that 
margin is increased by the bonds being above par, has given rise 
to the expression that the notes of a broken national bank are 
better than those of a sound one. 

No National bank can loan money directly on real estate 
security. This is to keep them on a strictly commercial basis. 
The notes formerly issued were ones, twos, fives, tens, twenties, 
fifties, one hundreds, five hundreds, and one thousands ; but 
since the resumption of specie payments (1879) ^^^^ ones and 
twos have been discontinued, in order to give circulation to the 
silver dollars. 

The total output of National Bank notes has been in round 
numbers, ;^ 3 5 0,000 ,000. Add to this the total issue of Green- 
backs or Legal Tenders, ^346,681,016, and the total National 
paper currency of the country (not including fractional currency) 
is ^700,000,000. 

The National Banks are taxed annually one per cent, on circu- 
lation, one-half per cent, on deposits, and one-half per cent, on 
the capital stock over and above the amount invested in 

* There is a bill now pending in the (48th) Congress which seeks to increase the 
issue of notes to an amount equal to the par value of the bonds deposited. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 221 

United States bonds. They are not exempt from State tax- 
ation. The total tax paid by National Banks is nearly ;^7,ooo,- 
ooo annually. 

These banks now number 2,359, ^"^ they a-e situated in all 
parts of the country. They have almost entirely taken the place 
of the old State banks, and they secure to the people a uniform 
system of currency and banking. The note of a bank in Maine 
is as good in California as at home. The holder is secure, 
because the note is backed up by security in bonds greater by 
at least ten per cent, than the note itself The notes are harder 
to counterfeit. The plates are beyond the control of the bank. 
The people have never had so uniform, stable, safe, and conve- 
nient a paper currency. 

DEBT AND BONDS.— Our country has never been free 
from public debt. It started under the indebtedness of the war 
for independence, which when gathered together in 1791 footed 
;^75, 463,476. This fluctuated up to 1804, when it was ;^86,427,- 
120. It then decreased till in 1812 it was ;^45, 209,737. The 
war of 181 2 came on, and in 1 8 16 the debt was ;^ 127,3 34,993. 
By gradual reduction, it was only ;^37, 513 in 1835, when the 
government was practically out of debt. But in 1836 it was 
;^336,957, and gradually ascended till the time of the Mexican 
war, say 1846, when it was ^15,550,202. Then in consequence 
of that war it leaped, 1848, to 1^47,044,862, and in 1849 to ;^63,- 
061,858. In 1856 it was down to ;^3 1,972,537, but by i860 up 
to ;^64,842,287. Then came the civil war with its immense ex- 
penditure. By 1866, the year in which the debt reached its 
highest figures, it was ;^2,778,236,I73. To handle this immense 
indebtedness put the energies of the country to extreme test, 
necessitated new subjects and methods of taxation, multiplied 
collection machinery, and made the Treasury Department a 
centre of extraordinary power and responsibility. The tariff 
laws were strengthened , and given protective features. The 
system of Internal Revenue was formulated. 

One source of war revenue has passed entirely away. This 
was what was known as the Income Tax, which originated in 
1863, and went out of existence by 1873. It was in its greatest 



222 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

vigor in 1866, when the government receipts from it were $72,- 
982,160. 

At the close of the war the government found itself not only 
with this immense indebtedness of $2,778,236,173 on hand, but 
it was in an ugly and pressing shape. War times did not 
facilitate funding; that is, gathering the floating debt up and 
placing it at interest, with gradual and remote payments of the 
principal. The shape of the debt was as follows : 

Debt already funded ;55l,r09, 568,191.80 

Matured debt 1,503,020.09 

Temporary loans 107,148,713.16 

Certificates of indebtedness 85,093,000.00 

Five per cent, legal tender notes 33,954,230.00 

Compound interest legal tender notes 217,024,160.00 

Seven-thirty notes 830,000,000.00 

U. S. Legal tender notes (greenbacks) 433,160,569,00 

Fractional currency 26,344,742.51 

Suspended requisitions 2,111,000.00 

Total. 2,845,907,626^56 

Less cash in the treasury 67,671,453.56 

Total as above 2,778,236,173.00 

Amount funded 1,109,568,191.80 

Amount unfunded or floating 1,668,667,981.20 

Here then was a total of ;^i, 668,667 ,98 1 which was not 
funded, was floating about loosely, and which the government 
was liable to be called on to pay at any moment. Worst of all, 
a part of it (the ;^830,ooo,ooo of seven-thirties) bore interest at 
7 3-10 per cent. Of course no government could stand for a 
moment in the face of such a drain as would be occasioned by 
the presentation of these floating claims for payment. Yet it 
must either pay, fund, or be dishonored. It could not do the 
first, nor submit to the third. Large as the debt was, the 
national honor was above all price. It must, therefore, do what 
all corporations and business firms do, viz. : fund its floating in- 
debtedness. This was a mighty work. In order to do it bonds 
were prepared, of various denominations, and mostly bearing 
interest at six per cent. These were to run not less than five 
nor more than twenty years. Hence they were called five- 
twenty six per cents. They were offered to the banks, and 
through them to the people. Could the government get enough 



RULING NATIONALLY. 223 

money from their sale to pay its floating indebtedness of $i, 668,- 
667,981 ? Could it pay its interest promptly, and have some- 
thing over toward the principal ? We have seen how the tariff laws 
and other revenue laws were strengthened. There would be 
enough and more. The people responded with a hearty good-wil'. 
The bonds were taken with alacrity, and looked upon as so 
desirable an investment that they soon sold at a premium. In a 
short time the government funded, through its five-twenty six 
per cents. ;$ 1,602, 698, 950 of its floating indebtedness, and 
thus relieved itself of all immediate pressure, except what 
was necessary to provide interest, and gradually reduce the 
principal. 

Such was the favor with which these securities (bonds) were 
received, that the government concluded it might lower its in- 
terest on them, and still sell them, thus saving a large amount 
of interest. This was no longer funding, but refunding. Re- 
funding began by acts of July 14, 1870, and Jan. 20, 1871. 
Again bonds were authorized to be issued to the extent of 
;^ 1, 5 00,000 ,000, bearing interest, ;$500,ooo,ooo at five per cent, 
and payable in ten years or at the pleasure of the United States ; 
;^300,ooo,ooo at 4^ per cent. ; the balance at 4 per cent. Witli 
the proceeds of these, the former high interest-bearing bonds 
were to be lifted. The crisis of 1873 interfered with their sale. 
But in 1876 they struck a favorable ifiarket, were successfully 
disposed of, and soon at a premium, as before. This favorable 
situation the government again took advantage of, and by repeated 
acts down to 1883, succeeded in carrying out a system of refund- 
ing which greatly lowered the interest on its bonds, the rates 
now running from 4^ to 3 per cent. It at the same time paid 
off the principal of its debt at an average rate of ^70,000,000 a 
year, so that the total is now below ;$ i ,400,000,000. 

It is not supposed that the process of refunding is yet com- 
plete. Many think that the 4 and 4^ per cent, bonds can be 
refunded into 3 per cents., and some enthusiastic persons think 
the whole interest-bearing debt can be floated at less than 3 per 
cent. This is hardly possible so long as the government adheres 
to the policy of paying off the debt so fast. This policy gives 



224 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

to a bond too short a life. It is not issued for any great number 
of years, and is called in when there is money enough to meet 
it. Thus the inducement of length of time, which is supposed 
to overcome the non-inducement of a low rate of interest, is lost. 
And as to this policy of rapid payment of the principal, it is be- 
ginning to receive criticism. The time was when it was proper, as 
helping to show the nation's earnestness and for the support of 
its credit. This time has passed. There is now no reason for 
haste, except a desire to be free from the annual loss of interest. 
Whether it is better to save this annual loss by prompt payment 
of the principal, or distribute the burden of payment over the 
generations that are to follow us, is a question which now draws 
a variety of opinions. 

A concluding remark must be made about the management 
of the Treasury Department during this period of immense 
receipts, expenditures and great responsibility. It has been 
such as to show less loss to the government than any former 
period. Considering the great influx of new force, the rush 
of business during war times, the newness and experimen- 
tal character of much of its work, this is agreeably surpris- 
ing, yet it may go to prove that a financial department, like a 
financial man, is capable of rising with an emergency, and meet- 
ing with honor the severest tests of ability and honesty. In 
answer to a request from* the Senate the Treasury Department 
submitted the following table, showing the per cent, of losses in 
its transactions since the beginning of the government and up to 
June 30, 1879: • 

Received and . Loss on 

Administrations. Expended. Total loss. ^1,000. 

Washington 8 Yrs. ^112,560,504 ^250,970 ;^2.22 

Adams, John 4 90,733,612 235,412 2.59 

Jefferson 8 219,072,736 603,468 2.75 

Madison 8 526,764,050 2,191,660 4.16 

Monroe 8 376,328,275 3,229,787 8.58 

Adams, John Q 4 201,488,077 885,374 4.39 

Jackson 8 500,081,748 3,761,112 7.52 

Van Buren 4 285,327,949 3»343»792 nji 

Harrison and Tyler . 4 244,590,156 1,565,903 6.40 

Folic 4 423,913,687 1,732,851 4-o8 

Taylor and Fillmore 4 432,861,677 1,814,409 4.19 

Pierce 4 608,257,816 2,167,982 3.56 

Buchanan 4 697,500,871 2,659,108 3.8 1 



RULING NATIONALLY. 225 

Received and Loss on 

Administrations. Expended. Total loss. $i,coo. 

Lincoln 4 Yrs. $9,386,697, 144 1^7,200,984 ^.76 

Johnson 4 8,014,908,984 4,619,600 .57 

Grant 8 10,842,922,583 2,622,479 -24 

Hayes 2 3>3S3>^^9>^5^ 2,677 ooS 

SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY. 

Names. Appointed, j Names. Appointed. 

Alex. Hamilton, N. Y Sept. ii, 1789 ! Robeit J. Walker, Miss. .Mar. 6, 1845 

Oliver Wolcott, Conn. . . .Feb. 2, 1795 j Wm. M. Meredith, Pa... .Mar. 8, 1849 
Samuel Dexter, Mass. . . Jan, i, 1801 } Thomas Corwin, O . . . . July 23, 1850 

Albert Gallatin, Pa May 14, 1801 I James Guthrie, Ky Mar. 7, 1853 



Geo. W. Campbell, Tenn. Feb. 9, 1814 

Alex. J. Dallas, Pa Oct. 6, 1814 

Wm. H. Crawford, Ga... Oct. 22, 1816 

Richard Rush, Pa Mar. 7, 1825 

Samuel D. Ingham, Pa.. .Mar. 6, 1829 

Louis McLane, Del Aug. 2, 1831 

Wm. J. Duane, Pa May 29, 1833 

Roger B. Taney, Md Sept. 23, 1833 

Levi Woodbury, N. H.. .June 27, 1834 

Thomas Ewing, O Mar. 5, 1841 

Walter Forward, Pa Sept. 13, 1841 

John C. Spencer, N. Y.. .Mar. 3, 1843 
Geo. M. Bibb, Ky June 15, 1844 



Howell Cobb, Ga Mar. 6, 1857 

Philip F. Thomas, Md... .Dec. 12, i860 

John A. Dix, N. Y Jan. 11, 1861 

Salmon P. Chase, O Mar. 7, 1861 

Wm. P. Fessenden, Me. .July i, 1864 

Hugh McCullough, Ind. .Mar. 7, 1865 
Geo. S. Boutwell, Mass.. .Mar. 11, 1869 

Wm. A. Richardson, Mass. Mar. 17, 1873 

Benj. H. Bristow, Ky. . . .June 4, 1874 

Lot M. Morrill, Me July 7, 1876 

John Sherman, O Mar. 8, 1877 

Wm. H. Windom, Minn. .Mar. 5, 1S81 

Charles J. Folger, N. Y. . Oct. 27, 1881 



THE WAR DEPARTMENT. 

As the name indicates, this Department has charge of all mat- 
ters appertaining to the army. It is presided over by the Secre- 
tary of War, salary ;^8,ooo, who is appointed by the President 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for the term 
of four years unless sooner removed. He is a member of the 
President's Cabinet, and in a military point of view ranks next 
to the President. 

The War Department was established by act of August 7, 
1789, and therefore is as old as the government. The act says 
" there shall be an executive Department denominated the De- 
partment of War, and there shall be a principal officer therein to 
be called the Secretary for the Department of War, who shall 
perform such duties as shall be entrusted to or enjoined on him 
by the President agreeably to the Constitution, relative to land 
forces, ships, or warlike stores of the United States." The De- 
partment then had control of " land forces and ships." It was 
both a War and Navy Department, the latter not having a sepa-r 
rate existence till some time afterwards. 
15 



226 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

SECRETARY'S DUTIES.— When it is said that the De- 
partment has charge of all matters relating to war a sharp line 
must be drawn between its affairs and those of the army in the 
field. The responsibility for campaigns, battles and manoeuvres 
rests on the generals who represent the commander-in-chief, the 
President, in the field. The War Department is the civil side 
of army affairs. The Secretary conducts the business of the De- 
partment. In war he is one hand of the President and the army 
the other. 

He attends to all commissions of officers, to the raising of 
forces, to the matter of army supplies. He has charge of all 
captured property, and sees to the transportation of troops, muni- 
tions, equipments and stores throughout the United States. He 
defines the quantity and kind of supplies and attends to their 
purchase through the Subsistence and Quartermaster's Depart- 
ments. He procures buildings to store them in. He receives 
field officers' accounts of clothing, munitions, supplies of every 
kind, and adjusts and passes on their accounts. In connection 
with army officers he must see to the condition of prisoners of 
war, advise with the militia officers of the States, issue proposals 
for supplies, and report to Congress annually or whenever called 
upon, the transactions of his office and its condition. An im- 
portant duty added since the civil war is the purchase, prepa- 
ration and care of the national cemeteries, of which there are 
seventy-nine, containing the bodies of tens of thousands of Union 
soldiers, known and unknown. 

His office is divided into sub-Departments, Bureaus or Divi- 
sions, each of which is presided over by a responsible head. 

ADJUTANT-GENERAL.— 1:\\\^ subdepartment is in charge 
of an Adjutant-General of the Army, who has army rank 
as Brigadier, and army pay. The business of the office is the 
organization and management of the armies. All orders to the 
military establishments and armies go out through this office. 
It attends to recruiting the armies, keeps all muster in and out 
rolls, and officers' accounts, furnishes statements to Treasury 
Auditors, Pension Commissioners, Paymasters, Commissaries and 
Quartermasters. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 227 

INSPECTOR-GENERAL.— ThQ Inspector-General ranks as 
Brigadier, with army pay. His business is to keep the Secretary 
of War posted as to the true condition of the army, its tents, 
arms, clothing, quarters, accoutrements, drill, discipline, and 
entire condition. 

SIGNAL OFFICE. — This useful office, a comparatively mod- 
ern one, is part civic and part military. It has charge, under the 
instructions of the Secretary of War, of a School of Instruction 
at Fort Whipple, Va., where war manoeuvres, the construction 
and working of rapid field telegraphy, the erection and manage- 
ment of army signals, and the control of all instruments of 
field observation, are taught. 

It has also charge of the Army Signal Corps, which is a mod- 
ern army essential, in time of active service, for safe and speedy 
operations. It is also useful in time of peace for the assistance 
it renders in conducting the Sea Coast Service, with its signal 
codes and quick telegraphy. 

To this office belongs also the well-known, popular, and now 
indispensable Weather Bureau, over which the familiar " Clerk 
of the Weather " presides. This Bureau conducts its business 
through Signal Stations erected at all exposed points on ocean, 
lake and river coast, at prominent points of observation in cities 
and on mountains and plains, with which it is connected by tele- 
graph. It is the duty of the officers in charge of these stations 
to telegraph, at least once a day, to the Central Bureau in Wash- 
ington the state of the barometer and thermometer, the velocity 
of wind and its direction, the nature of the storm or calm that ex- 
ists; in short, such a full condition of the weather as will enable a 
forecast to be made inland or for the sea, for the general use of 
sailors, merchants, farmers and others likely to be affected by it. 
When the conditions on coasts are dangerous, storm signals are 
erected, and mariners either heed them or sail at their peril. 
The active operations of the Weather Bureau date from 1868-69. 

QUARTERMASTER.— This Department purchases and dis- 
tributes to the army all military stores and supplies, such as 
clothing, fuel, forage, camp and garrison equipage (the furnish- 
ing of rations belongs to the Subsistence Department), and fur- 



228 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

nishes means of transportation for the army and its stores. It 
is presided over by the Quartermaster-General, who ranks as 
Brigadier, with army pay. While the duties of the central office 
at Washington are important and responsible, its main responsi- 
bility is in the camps and garrisons in time of peace, and in the 
field in time of war. It reaches these remote points by means 
of Quartermasters. These subordinate officers are the agents 
of the Quartermaster-General. They represent the movable 
quality of the office. They are at all the military posts during 
peace. In time of war their number has to be increased, and they 
are found in all the armies and sections of armies superintending 
the matter of transportation and supplies, holding the officers to 
' strict account for whatever is furnished, and in turn accounting 
themselves to their chief for what they receive and distribute. 

COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT.— This office is presided 
over by the Commissary-General, who ranks as Brigadier, 
with army pay. It is not unlike the Quartermaster-General's 
office, except that it has sole charge of the supply of army ra- 
tions. It buys all rations and furnishes them to the officers and 
men of the army at cost price. It carries its work down to the 
military posts and to the camps in the field by means of subor- 
dinates called Commissaries, who, like Quartermasters, are more 
numerous in time of war than in peace, and who must be 
promptly on hand with food whenever it is needed. 

PA YMASTER. — This Department is presided over by a Pay- 
master-General, who ranks as Brigadier with army pay. The 
titfe suggests the duty, which is to pay the army and keep all 
the pay rolls and accounts connected with the operation. The 
field and post work of the office is carried on by means of Pay- 
masters in fact, who are assigned to duty at the respective posts 
and in the divisions of the army in time of active service. 

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.— ThQ chief officer of this De- 
partment is the Surgeon-General, who ranks as Brigadier with 
army pay. He is chosen for his scientific knowledge. The De- 
partment has in charge the matter of army hospitals and hospital 
supplies, the care of sick and wounded soldiers, the furnishing 
of artificial limbs, eyes and other appliances for the maimed, re- 



RULING NATIONALLY. 229 

ports on hospital diseases, treatments and operations, the control 
of the Medical Museum, which, by the way, is now one of the 
best appointed and most interesting of its kind in the world. 

ORDNANCE OFFICE.— Th^ officer in charge of this De- 
partment is called the Chief of Ordnance. He ranks as Briga- 
dier with army pay. This office attends to procuring and sup- 
plying to the army all cannon, gun-carriages, and all ammunition 
and equipments for the same, whether for use in garrison, field 
or siege service. It is the heavy gun department of the war 
branch. It operates through Ordnance Stations, situated in dif- 
ferent portions of the country, where ordnance is kept for con- 
venience of use and for preservation, and which are called Ar- 
senals. There are now twenty-two of these Ordnance Stations or 
Arsenals in the country. In this list of Arsenals are included 
the Armory at Springfield, Mass., where small arms and am- 
munition are made and stored. There was a large Armory at 
Harper's Ferry, which was destroyed during the civil war. 

CHIEF ENGINEER.— ThQ responsible officer is a Chief of 
Engineers, who ranks as Brigadier, with army pay. The duties 
of this office are various. The Chief of Engineers commands 
the Corps of Engineers whose duty is to attend to locating, 
building and caring for fortifications, coast and inland ; design- 
ing, building and handling pontoon bridges ; designating and 
carrying out river and harbor improvements ; making surveys for 
mihtary purposes. The Chief of Engineers is also Commissioner 
of Public Buildings and Grounds in Washington. He is Superin- 
tendent of the Washington Aqueduct, which supplies the capital 
with water, and from the Engineer Corps are selected three of 
the seven members of the Mississippi River Commission, which 
has charge of the public improvements along that stream. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR. 



Names, Appointed. 

Henry Knox, Mass Sept. 12, 1789 

Timothy Pickering, Pa. . . .Jan. 2, 1795 

James McHenry, Md Jan. 27, 1796 

James Marshall, Va May 7, 1800 

Samuel Dexter, Mass May 13, 1800 

Roger Griswold, Conn.. . .Feb. 3, 1801 
Henry Dearborn, Mass. . .Mar. 5, 1801 
William Eustis, Mass Mar. 7, 1809 



Names. Appointed. 

John Armstrong, N. Y Jan. 13, 18 13 

James Monroe, Va Sept. 27, 1814 

Wm. H. Crawford, Ga Aug. i, 1815 

Geo, Graham («^2«.), Va.. April 7, 1817 

John C. Calhoun, S. C Oct. 8, 1817 

James Barbour, Va Mar. 7, 1823 

Peter B. Porter, N. Y May 26, 1828 

John H. Eaton, Tenn Mar. 9, 1829 



230 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR — Continued. 



Names. Appointed. 

Louis Cass, Mich Aug. i, 1831 

Benj. F. Butler, N. Y Mar. 3, 1837 

Joel R. Poinsett, S. C Mar. 7, 1837 

John Bell, Tenn Mar. 5, 1841 

John McLean, O Sept. 13, 1841 

John C. Spencer, N. Y Oct. 12, 1841 

James M. Porter, Pa Mar. 8, 1843 

William Wilkins, Pa Feb. 15, 1844 

William L. Marcy, N. Y. .Mar. 6, 1845 
George W. Crawford, Ga.. Mar. 8, 1849 
Winfield Scott (rta'm.),Va..July 23, 1850 

Charles M. Conrad, La Aug. 15, 1850 

Jefferson Davis, Miss Mar. 5, 1853 

John B. Floyd, Va Mar. 6, 1857 

Joseph Holt, Ky Jan. 18, i86i 



Names. Appointed. 

Simon Cameron, Pa Mar. 5, 1861 

Edwin M.Stanton, Pa Jan. 15, 1862 

U. S. Grant {ad in). 111.. . .Aug. 12, 1867 

Edwin M. Stanton, Pa Jan. 14, 1868 

L. Thomas [adin.), Md. .Feb. 21, 1868 
John M. Schofield, 111. . ..May 28, 1868 

John A. Rawlins, 111 Mar. 11, 1869 

William T. Sherman, O.. ..Sept. 9, 1869 
William W. Belknap, lowa.Oct. 25, 1869 

Alphonso Taft, O Mar. 8, 1876 

James D. Cameron, Pa May 22, 1876 

Geo. W. McCrary, Iowa. .Mar. 12, 1877 
Alexander Ramsey, Minn. .Dec, 10, 1879 
Robert T. Lincoln, 111 Mar. 5, 1881 



THE ARMY. — The army of the United States is in one sense 
an organization separate from the War Department, in another 
connected with it. Its field administrations are separate, yet in 
all things appertaining to its supplies, enlistments, accounts, the 
two are inseparable. The question of a standing army in this 
dountry — that is, an army in time of peace — has always been a 
troublesome one, and the policy has been to keep it reduced to 
the lowest standard possible. This policy results from a whole- 
some dread of such large standing armies as enable European 
monarchs to keep their thrones, and which are a constant menace 
to the peace of nations, as well as a great source of expense to 
the supporting governments. But our experience has shown 
the necessity of at least a small standing army for the purpose 
of executing the laws in exposed places, as on the border, and 
suppressing disturbances wherever they may arise. The moral 
effect of an army, as an arm of the executive, is also very great. 
Power is far more imposing and effective when backed by a vigor 
which lawlessness regards it folly to dispute, or before which it 
quails ; and power is never so impotent and ridiculous as when 
attempts to exercise it are foiled by the mob. The dignity and 
efficacy of executive authority require, as things go, an army of 
some shape and proportion ; and a navy too. The economic 
argument in favor of an army is also very great. Besides assur- 
ing peace and protection it is the nucleus of that larger army 
which is made up of volunteers and called into service when 



RULING NATIONALLY. 231 

emergency requires. It is a constant training school for officers 
and men, so that the country is never without a sufficient amount 
of miHtary discipline to meet the needs of larger called armies, 
when the condition is one of active war. 

The army of the United States is called the Regular army in 
contradistinction to that added to it in time of war, called the 
Volunteer army. It is also thus distinguished from the militia 
of the several States, and the militia system, which is a mixed 
government and State system. 

The present army is not in excess of 25,000 men, and, by act 
of June 18, 1878, cannot exceed 30,000. Enlistments are for 
five years. There are twenty-five regiments of infantry, ten of 
cavalry and five of artillery, and a force of 1,000 Indian scouts. 
An infantry regiment is composed often companies, of fifty men 
each, which the President may increase to 100. 

A regiment of cavalry consists of twelve troops, and each 
troop of 78 men. A regiment of artillery consists of twelve bat- 
teries, and each battery of 120 men.. These figures are the 
maximum of each. They are in excess of the actual number 
in each regiment and company. 

The higher officers of the army are a General and Lieutenant- 
General, which two are honorary, conferred only at times on 
account of distinguished service, and expire with the death or 
resignation of their incumbent. The salary of the General is 
;^I3,500, that of Lieutenant-General ;^ii,ooo. The regular 
officers are Major-Generals, salary ;^7,500 ; Brigadier-Generals, 
salary ;^5,500; Colonels, salary ;^3,50o; Captains, salary ;^ 1,800; 
and Lieutenants, ;^ 1,600. 

Then there are with the army representatives or duplicates of 
each of the departments we have seen in connection with the 
Department of War, as Adjutant-General's Department, Quar- 
termaster's Department, Inspector-General's Department, Engi- 
neer Corps, Ordnance Department, Medical Department, Pay 
Department, Signal Officer, Bureau of Military Justice, Chaplains, 
bands, etc., all of which have their place and. add to the comfort 
and efficiency of the force. The army is governed by a code 
prescribed by Congress called Articles of War. They are 128 



232 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in number; and are read at the time of enlistment and every six 
months afterwards. 

A charitable provision in our army system is, first, gradually 
increasing pay for the minor officers as they add to their years 
of service, and second, three-fourth pay to all commissioned 
officers when they are placed on the retired list. Officers pass 
to the retired list by law after thirty-two years of service or on 
arriving at the age of sixty-two, but may be retired for honor- 
able cause and by proper authority at any time. 

MILITARY ACADEMY.— This government school for the 
education of men in the science and art of war is situated at 
West Point on the Hudson. It was authorized by act of Con- 
gress in 1802, and then instituted in a modest way. It has since 
grown to be a large and useful institution, ranking with the best 
of its kind in the world. Its chief officer is a superintendent, 
who ranks as Colonel. It has a large corps of professors de- 
voted to teaching tactics, engineering, philosophy, mathematics, 
history, geography, ethics, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, 
drawing, modern languages, gymnastics, music, etc. ; the idea 
being to provide not only men skilled in whatever appertains to 
army affairs, but educated gentlemen also. 

Each Congressional district and Territory in the United States 
is entitled to have one cadet or scholar at the Military Academy. 
The District of Columbia is entitled to one, and the United 
States to ten, called cadets at large. The President selects the 
cadets at large. The Secretary of War selects those from the 
Congressional districts, at the request of the representative 
thereof in Congress. Candidates must be between seventeen and 
twenty-two years old, at least five feet in height, physically per- 
fect, and must be proficient in the elementary branches. They 
are paid ;^540 a year, which is regarded as sufficient to maintain 
them. They graduate with the rank of lieutenant in the army, 
and are standing candidates for an active place with that rank. 
The academy is visited annually by a commission appointed by 
the President and composed of members of Congress and mili- 
tary officers, who report to the Secretary of War for the use of 
Congress. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 233 

NAVY DEPARTMENT. 

The Navy Department was at first connected with the War 
Department. It was erected into a separate department by act 
of April 30, 1798, and went into operation in June, 1798. Its 
chief officer is the Secretary of the Navy, salary ;^8,ooo, ap- 
pointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, for four years, unless sooner removed. He ranks as 
a member of the cabinet. Like all the other departments, this 
is divided into a number of Bureaus or Divisions, for its more 
effective working. The name of the department suggests that 
it is devoted to the naval affairs of the country. The question 
of a navy has always been an interesting one, and parties have 
often divided on the propriety of keeping a naval establishment 
in time of peace, likewise over the policy of strengthening 
it in time of emergency. It must be said that in time of war, 
when our destinies were all in the keeping of our vessels of war 
and our hardy sailors, that the American Navy has been a source 
of safety and credit, and has given proof that we can conduct 
ocean warfare with all the brilliancy and effect of those who 
boast of more formidable ships and thoroughly trained mar- 
iners. 

SECRETARY'S DUTIES.—YIq must provide all naval 
stores and construct, arm, equip and employ vessels of war. 
All captures of ships, standards and guns must be reported to 
him and pass into his custody. He prepares and publishes all 
charts, maps, sailing directions and nautical books, bearing on 
navigation, which he deems necessary. He reports annually to 
Congress the state of the navy and submits estimates for ap- 
propriations. He accounts for all disbursements on behalf of the 
navy. He establishes coal stations in different parts of the 
world, disposes of old ships and worn-out equipments, acts as 
trustee of the Navy Pension Fund and Privateer Fund ; in 
short does all that appertains to efficient management of naval 
affairs. 

YARDS AND DOCKS.—This Bureau has charge of the 
Navy Yards and Naval Stations, their construction and main- 



234 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tenance, and the supply of timber therefor. There are several 
Navy Yards and Stations in the country, located at what are 
supposed to be available points, as at Portsmouth, N. H. ; 
Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Philadelphia, Pa.; Boston, Mass. ; Washing- 
ton, D. C. ; Norfolk, Va. ; Pensacola, Pla. ; Mare Island, Cal. ; 
New London, Conn. (N. Station); Port Royal, S. C. (store ships). 
They were erected for the purpose of building ships of war, but 
that work has been discontinued at many of them. They are 
convenient stations and repair-shops, and no longer a reliance for 
the speedy construction of large and effective war-ships, owing 
to the cost of properly maintaining them, and the spasmodic 
demand for their services. The Chief of the Bureau of Yards 
and Docks ranks as a Captain in the navy. 

EQUIPMENT AND RECRUITING.— Th^ Chief of this 
Bureau ranks as Commodore in the navy. It is the recruiting 
office of the navy, and attends to the equipment of vessels of 
war with sails, rigging, anchors, fuel, etc. 

NAVIGATION— The Chief of this Bureau ranks as Com- 
modore. He has a chief clerk and four assistants. The Naval 
Observatory and Hydrographic Office are in the care of this 
Bureau, which in addition supplies vessels of war with flags, 
charts, signals, chronometers, barometers, glasses, etc. 

The Naval Observatory just mentioned is the counterpart, in 
America, of the Greenwich Observatory in England, and arose 
from the same necessity ; to wit, that for accurate astronomical 
observ^ations and safe computations for the purposes of naviga- 
tion. The Observatory employs a Superintendent, who ranks 
as Rear Admiral, and ten assistant professors who rank as naval 
officers of different grades. It is a finely equipped institution 
and employs some of the best astronomical observers and calcu- 
lators in the country. As to astronomical observations its work 
is the same as that of the numerous collegiate and private ob- 
servatories throughout the country, but aside from that, its 
energies are devoted to the tabulation of results, and the turning 
of discoveries, corrections, and calculations to practical scientific 
account. 

Scarcely less important is the Hydrographic Office, where the 



RULING NATIONALLY. 235 

results of surveys, soundings and coast, lake and river observa- 
tions are engraved, printed and published in map, chart or book 
form and given out for the use of naval vessels and those of the 
merchant marine. Its Chief ranks as Captain in the navy. The 
Nautical Almanac is published from this office. 

BUREAU OF ORDNANCE.— Th^ Chief of this Bureau 
ranks as Commodore in the navy. He has charge of the manu- 
facture of naval ordnance, ammunition, armament for vessels, of 
arsenals and magazines, the torpedo service and stations, all ex- 
periments for testing guns, torpedoes and other naval weapons. 

CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIRS.— The Chief of this Bu- 
reau ranks as Commodore. He controls all dry-docks, and 
designs, builds and fits out vessels of war. 

STEAM-ENGINEERING.— ThQ Chief ranks as Commo- 
dore. He controls the designing, manufacturing and adjusting 
of all the steam-engines and steam-machinery of war vessels. 

PROVISION AND CLOTHING.— The Chief of this Bu- 
reau ranks as Commodore. The office supervises the purchase 
and supply of food and clothing for the navy. 

MEDICINE AND SURGERY.— The Chief ranks as Com- 
modore. The Bureau supplies medicines, instruments and 
medical stores to vessels of war and marine hospitals and 
accounts for the same. 

The Navy, like the Army, has given rise to a set of charitable 
and educational institutions which arc objects of pride on the 
part of the Department and of great utility. The first of these 
is the 

NAVAL ASYLUM located at Philadelphia. It is a home 
for old or disabled naval officers, seamen and marines. It oper- 
ates outside of and distinct from the pension system. Navy 
pensioners may commute their pensions for places in the Asylum. 
The applicant must be unable to work and must have served 
twenty years in the navy. If admitted, the Asylum is his home 
till death, on condition that he obeys its rules, which are quite 
rigid. For good conduct one dollar a month is awarded to each 
sojourner. The institution is presided over by a governor, with 
navy rank and pay. 

I 



236 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

NA VAL HOSPITALS.— ThtsQ are institutions for the tern- 
porary treatment of sick and disabled seamen. They are sup- 
ported by an annual appropriation. There are eighteen Naval 
Hospitals in the country, located at leading ports or wherever 
there are naval stations, and one at Yokohama in Japan. 

NA VAL ACADEMY.— This Academy, a national institution, 
is as much a part of the Navy Department as the Military 
Academy is a part of the War Department. It is located at 
Annapolis, Md. Its Superintendent always ranks high among 
naval officers. He is assisted by other officers of the navy and 
by a corps of professors, who teach seamanship, gunnery, mathe- 
matics, engineering, astronomy and navigation, chemistry, phys- 
ics, modern languages, history, drawing, and whatever will fill 
out the education of a naval officer, a private engineer or retired 
gentleman. The pupils come from the Congressional districts 
and Territories, one from each, with one for the District of 
Columbia, and ten at large. The President appoints those at 
large. The Secretary of the Navy, deferring to the recommen- 
dation of the member of Congress from a district or delegate 
from a Territory, appoints those from the districts. Applicants 
are examined by the Superintendent of the Academy in June 
and September of each year. In order to pass they must be 
physically sound, of good moral character, not under fourteen 
nor over eighteen, and up to the standard in the' elementary 
English branches. If admitted, candidates become cadet-mid- 
shipmen, and are not only pupils but inmates of the Academy 
for a term of six years, to which they must bind themselves to 
add two years of active service if not discharged. They are 
paid ;^500 a year from time of admission. After their eight 
years of service and schooling they graduate as Midshipmen in 
the navy. 

There is also a course of studies in, or rather a department of, 
the Academy devoted to Naval Engineering. It is a four-year 
course at the Academy and two in a vessel at sea. The pupil 
in this course is a cadet-engineer. When he graduates he is 
entitled to a commission as Assistant Engineer in the navy, 
when there is a vacancy. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 



237 



U. S. NAVY. — The highest rank in the navy is Admiral, 
salary, ^13,000; the next. Vice- Admiral, salary, $gfyoo. These, 
like General and Lieutenant-General in the army, are honorary 
and temporary, and expire with those on whom they were spe- 
cially conferred. The highest real or working rank is Rear- 
Admiral, salary, ;^6,ooo. Then comes, in order, Commodore, 
salary, ;^5,ooo; Captain, ;^4,5oo; Commander, ;^3,500; Lieu- 
tenant-Commander, ;^2, 800; Lieutenant, ^2,400 ; Master, ;§g 1,800; 
Ensign, ;^ 1,200; Midshipmen, ^^ 1,000. All these salaries are 
actual duty salaries at sea. They are considerably less for shore 
duty. The salary of the officers, from Lieutenant-Commander 
down, increases after a service of five years from date of com- 
mission. Pensions and retiracy from service on pay are on the 
same general plan as prevails in the army. Enlistments in the 
navy are for not less than three nor more than five years. Minors 
from fifteen to eighteen may be enlisted till they are twenty-one, 
with the consent of parents. The total force of officers and 
men in the navy, in time of peace, or as the laws now stand, 
cannot exceed 8,250. The navy is governed by a code of sixty 
articles prescribed by Congress. 

MARINE CORPS. — This very useful arm of the service is a 
nondescript. It is a body of enlisted men, not exceeding 2,500 
in number, who are officered and disciplined according to army 
rules and tactics, who do regular military duty at United States 
arsenals and naval stations, but who may be detailed for active 
service on board war vessels. They have proved excellent for 
policing and garrison purposes, and the complement of them as- 
signed to ships during actual war have enabled victorious vessels 
to hold captured places permanently without the constant men- 
ace of heavy guns. 

SECRETARIES OF NAVY. 



Name. Appointed. 

George Cabot, Mass May 3, 1798 

Benjamin Stoddert, Mass.. May 21, 1798 

Robert Smith, Md July 15, 1801 

J. Crowninshield, Mass. . .May 3, 1805 

Paul Hamilton, S. C Mar. 7, 1809 

William Jones, Pa Jan. 12, I813 

B.W. Crowninshield, Mass. Dec. 19, 1814 



Name. Appointed. 

Smith Thompson, N. Y. ..Nov. 9, 1818 

John Rogers, Mass Sept. I, 1823 

Samuel L. Southard, N. J.Sept. 16, 1823 

John Branch, N. C Mar. 9, 1829 

Levi Woodbury, N. H May 23, 1831 

Mahlon Dickerson, N. J. .June 30, 1834 
James K. Paulding, N. Y.June 25, 1838 



238 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



SECRETARIES OF NAVY — Continued, 



Name. Appointed. 

George E. Badger, N. C. .Mar. 5, 1841 

A. P. Upshur, Va Sept. 13, 1 841 

David Henshaw, Mass... .July 24, 1843 
Thomas W. Gilmer, Va.. .Feb. 15, 1844 

John Y. Mason, Va Mar. 14, 1844 

George Bancroft, Mass.. . .Mar. 10, 1845 

John Y. Mason, Va Sept. 9, 1846 

William B. Preston, Va. ..Mar. 8, 1849 
"William A. Graham, N. C.July 22, 1850 
John P. Kennedy, Md July 22, 1852 



Name. Appointed, 

James C. Dobbin, N. C. ..Mar. 7, 1853 

Isaac Toucey, Conn Mar, 6, 1857 

Gideon Welles, Conn Mar. 5, 1861 

Adolph E. Borie, Pa Mar. 5, 1869 

George M. Robeson, N. J. .June 25, 1869 
Rich. W. Thompson, Ind..Mar. 12, 1877 
Nathan Goff, Jr., W. Va. .Jan. 6, 1881 

W. H. Hunt, La Mar. 5,1881 

Wm. E. Chandler, N. H.. April i, 1882 



INTERIOR DEPARTMENT. 

This office did not exist till authorized by act of March 3, 
1849. It became necessary by reason of the great growth of 
some of the Bureaus and Divisions of the other Departments, 
especially those of Public Lands and Patents, and because the 
time had come for a grouping of them under a head more sig- 
nificant of their real character. We are not sure that the title 
" Interior Department " is the happiest which could have been 
chosen, but it savors of home and gives one to understand that 
the business of the office relates to affairs quite within our own 
boundaries. It has not only drawn something from other offices, 
but has been the office most called upon to meet the great and 
growing demands of the country, whenever a Department was 
needed to take control of a newly created service. 

The office has for its head a Secretary of Interior, appointed 
by the President by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, for the term of four years unless sooner removed. His 
salary is ;^8,ooo, and he is a Member of the Cabinet. 

SECRETARY'S DUTIES.— Uq attends to all business relat- 
ing to Public lands and mines, Indians, bounty lands, patents, 
custody and distribution of publications, education, census. Ter- 
ritories, government asylums. He reports annually, or whenever 
called upon, to Congress respecting the workings of his office. 
He prepares the Federal Blue Book or Biennial Register of all 
the government employes, keeps the return office in which are 
filed the contracts made in the Departments of War, Navy, and 
Interior, controls the Yellowstone Park, and publishes at the 



RULING NATIONALLY. 239 

close of each session of Congress ii,ooo copies of the laws just 
passed. Like all the other Departments, this is divided into 
Bureaus and Divisions devoted to certain duties, that the entire 
work of the Department may be carried on in an orderly manner. 
Perhaps the most important is the 

GENERAL LAND OFFICE.— This was a part of the 
Treasury Department until the creation of the Interior Depart- 
ment. Quite early, the matter of disposing of the Public lands 
became important, and a Land office was created by act of April 
2$, 1812. This question of selling public lands and disposing 
of the proceeds was for over half a century actively political, and 
not until the passage of the Homestead laws, beginning in 1862, 
did a satisfactory method of dealing with them exist. 

The duties of the General Land Office are attended to by a 
Commissioner, who acts under the Secretary of the Interior. 
These duties relate to the surveying and plotting of public 
lands, their sale, and the issuing of patents for those sold. There 
are local Land offices, numbering sixteen, in all the States and 
Territories containing public lands for sale. These are presided 
over by U. S. Surveyors-General. The Surveyor-General em- 
ploys surveyors, draughtsmen, and clerks who are engaged in 
the active work of field surveys. This work of surveying, plot- 
ting, dividing, and giving metes and bounds to public lands is 
always going on. At first townships are formed, six miles 
square, with true east and west and north and south boundaries, 
and the four corners are located and marked. Then each 
township is cut in sections one mile square, or 640 acres each, 
and these are subdivided into quarter sections of 160 acres 
each. They are all numbered and booked, and are known, 
referred to, sold, and patented according to their number and 
range. 

The actual selling of the lands is done through still another 
set of offices more numerous than those of the Surveyors, and 
located at all available points. They are known as Land offices 
too, but they are Registers* and Receivers' offices, being presided 
over each by a Register and Receiver. His business is to make 
final disposition of the lands to the actual applicant or settler, 



240 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

give him title and possession, collect the fees and purchase- 
money, and account to the government. 

PUBLIC LANDS. — These formerly existed in every State 
outside of the original thirteen, but they now exist only in the 
Territories, and to a greater or less extent in Alabama, Arkansas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, 
Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, California, Nevada, Oregon 
and Colorado. The public lands are being disposed of very 
rapidly. Figures respecting surveys and sales are almost daz- 
zling. The sales for 1883 amounted to 16,830,000 acres, the 
largest on record. In 1873 they only amounted to 3,793,000 
acres, but they always fall off during hard times. 

PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM.— \\. may be said in general that 
public lands are of two classes, one rating at $\.2^ per acre, the 
other at ;$2.50 per acre. There are four ways of getting posses- 
sion : 1st, under the Homestead act; 2d, under the Pre-emption 
laws ; 3d, under the Timber Culture act ; 4th, under the Military 
bounty act. The Homestead act provides that any head of a 
family, or person over 21 years, a citizen or one who has declared 
his intentions, may enter a homestead of 160 acres, or alternate 
80 acres, of surveyed land. He must pay the entry fees, from 
$'j to ;^22, take possession and be an actual settler for five years, 
pay the government price, and get the title. Under the pre- 
emption laws the same class of persons may enter any unsur- 
veyed, offered, or unoffered lands, and by payment of fees, and 
proof of actual settlement, hold a section of the same against 
sale to any one else. He must make final proofs and payments 
as under the Homestead act, in order to complete his title. Title 
to a section of land may be acquired by a soldier who holds a 
bounty land-warrant, said land-warrant being good payment for 
the land as far as it goes. , But the government has never issued 
many of such land-warrants. Title may be secured under the 
Timber Culture acts of 1873-78, by any actual settler who culti- 
vates for two years five acres of trees. Such an one gets 80 
acres; and 160 acres if he cultivate ten acres of trees. His 
patent will be issued free at the end of three years, on proof of 
what he has done. The design is to encourage timber culture 



RULING NATIONALLY. . 241 

on farm land. Of course nothing in these acts prevents a cash 
purchaser at the public auction of these lands from acquiring 
patented title. 

These acts all refer to the sale of Agricultural lands. The Min- 
eral lands are located and disposed of under another set of regu- 
lations, which miners and mining companies alone are interested 
in, though all are open to the ordinary private citizen. After 
i860 the policy of giving government aid to Railroads, chiefly 
those through to the Pacific, in the shape of large grants of 
public lands, became popular for a time, but is so no longer. 
The public lands yet unsold amount to 1,814,793,938 acres. 

PENSION OFFICE.— This important branch of the Depart- 
ment of the Interior is presided over by the Commissioner of 
Pensions. Our pension system began with the government and 
was conducted by the Secretary of War until 1833. Then a 
Pension Office was created which remained with the War De- 
partment till the establishment of the Interior Department in 
1849. Our government has always been liberal in its payment 
of pensions to soldiers and their families. Not a year has 
elapsed since the starting of the government that a good round 
sum has not been paid in the shape of pensions. The avecage 
up to 18 1 5 would be about ;^ 100,000 yearly. From that time on 
till 1865 the average would be fully ;^2, 000,000 annually. Since 
then the figures have assumed enormous proportions, owing to 
the fact that the civil war greatly increased the list of pensioners, 
and the further fact that Congress has exceeded all former liber- 
ality by dating the payment of pensions back to the time of in- 
jury or deprivation, instead of beginning it with the date on 
which the pension is granted. Our pension system does not 
reach the Civil Service as in England, if we except the retiracy 
of Judges of the United States Courts, who may, since 1869, 
retire at seventy with full salary for life, if they have served ten 
years continuously. The total cost of the system for 1882 was 
^54,296,280.84. 

COMMISSIONER'S DUTIES.— Hg must hear through his 
examiners, surgeons, etc., all applicants for pensions, grant pen- 
sion papers to the meritorious, investigate frauds, issue bounty 
16 



242 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

land-warrants, and do all that this elaborate and expensive 
system requires of him. 

In paying pensions he is assisted by Pension Agents, located 
at offices throughout the country called Pension Agencies. 
There are now seventeen of these, located at Boston, Chicago, 
Columbus, Concord, Des Moines, Detroit, Indianapolis, Knox- 
ville, Louisville, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, 
St. Louis, San Francisco, Syracuse, Washington, D. C. 

The manner of applying for pensions is carefully guarded by 
formalities, oaths, examinations, etc., as it must necessarily be, 
owing to the great number of applicants and the inducement 
to raise fictitious cases. The rate of pension paid is regulated 
by the character of the disability and the rank of the pensioner. 
Widows of soldiers killed in service are entitled, and orphans 
under sixteen. In addition to pension each soldier is entitled to 
periodical allowance for an artificial limb or eye, if compelled to 
use such. 

INDIAN BUREAU.— \ Bureau of Indian Affairs was estab- 
lished as early as 1832, and became connected with the Interior 
Department in 1849. Its chief officer is a Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs. The active work of the Bureau is done among 
the Indians at Agencies, and by Agents, of which there are 
some seventy, situated so as to accommodate the respective 
tribes. 

The government has from time to time made treaties with 
different tribes, allotted reservations to others, and entered upon 
a variety of contracts, possible and impossible, according to the 
whim of the natives, many of which are but little better than 
agreements to support whole tribes in idleness. The fulfillment 
of these compacts makes what are called our Indian relations. 
These it is the business of the Commisstioner of Indian Affairs 
to superintend. The fact that such superintendence never served 
to ameliorate the condition of the Indian gave rise to a Board 
of Indian Commissioners, composed of intelligent and charitably 
disposed men, appointed by the President, and who serve with- 
out pay, whose duty it is to supervise all moneys appropriated 
for Indians, and inspect food and clothing purchased for their use. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 243 

The necessity for such commission is a confession that the 
government either had not conducted or could not conduct its 
Indian affairs properly : both of which were doubtless true, in 
the absence of a clearly defined Indian policy, which no more 
exists to-day than when the Cavalier and Puritan landed. 

PATENT OFFICE. — This interesting office is under the 
immediate supervision of a Commissioner ot Patents. 

The name of the office suggests its use. The first act relating 
to patents was that of April lo, 1790. It authorized the grant- 
ing of patents by the Secretary of State, after consultation with 
the Secretary of War and Attorney-General, though either could 
act on his own responsibility. The present office and something 
like the present system was created by act of March 3, 1849, in 
connection with the Interior Department. But it was not until 
the act of July 8, 1870, that the existing system took full shape 
and vigor. 

The model-rooms of the Patent Office were begun in 1836. 
They were greatly enlarged, and quite well filled with models, 
when the fire of Sept. 24, 1877, destroyed some 87,000 of them, 
besides other interesting historic relics. They have been again 
enlarged and are rapidly filling up with evidences of American 
genius and skill. 

Patents are granted only after full designs or models have been 
presented and examined by experts, and something found therein 
" new and useful, not known or used by others in this country, 
and not patented or described in print in this or any other 
country." A patent for an original invention runs for seventeen 
years. A patent for a design may run from three and a half 
years to fourteen years. 

CENSUS OFFICE. — The Secretary of the Interior is charged 
with the duty of taking each decennial census, through and by 
means of a Superintendent of Census. The active work of 
enumeration is done by means of Supervisors of districts, 
specially appointed. These send out enumerators into all the 
subdivisions of a district, who gather the facts and figures from 
the people, and return them in a given time. When they 
reach the Central Office at Washington they are tabulated and 



244 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

printed in the form of Census Reports. The work of census-taking 
is important, and it is to be regretted that it has never reached, 
in this country, the perfection it has in some others. This may 
seem strange in view of the fact that the United States was the 
first nation to provide in its fundamental law for a periodical 
count of its people. The first census under the Constitution 
was taken in 1790. They have been taken every ten years 
since, and the results duly published. The early censuses con- 
tained but little more than an enumeration of the people. The 
omission of statistics and facts relating to the industries of the 
country caused a general overhauling of the c&nsus methods in 
1 849. By act of March 3 of that year a Census Board was created, 
composed of the Secretary of State, Postmaster-General and 
Attorney-General, to prepare a plan for the census of 1850. 
This resulted in an act of May 23, 1850, creating a Census 
Office in the Department of the Interior, with a Superintendent, 
as above noted. Since then the census inquiries have been 
framed so as to cover not only population, but age, nationality, 
physical and mental condition, social matters, churches, schools, 
industrial establishments, farms, products of every kind, and 
whatever will contribute to knowledge of our wealth, progress 
and actual status as a people. One hundred inquiries could be 
addressed to the citizen by the census enumerator, but no more. 
The three censuses taken under the act of 1850 were great ad- 
vances on those taken before, and their results form a set of 
volumes which are indispensable to historians, statisticians and 
students of social problems. Still the act was defective, and the 
machinery under it clumsy and uncertain. An attempt was 
made to remedy it by the census act of 1880. It is not yet time 
to say whether the attempt has been a success or a failure. It 
has certainly not resulted in a prompter receipt, tabulation and 
publication of the returns, though those already perfected show a 
completeness and utility beyond all others. 

BUREAU OF EDUCATION.— T\{\s Bureau was created by 
act of March 2, 1867, and attached to the Department of the 
Interior. Its Chief is a Commissioner of Education. The 
business gf the Bureau is to collect, publish and disseminate 



RULING NATIONALLY. 245 

among the people such information touching schools and school 
systems as will enable them to keep pace with modern improve- 
ments in school organization and management, and meet the 
national desire to overcome illiteracy wherever it exists. The 
Bureau was a noble conception, and its work bears on vital 
points, for our Republic is ever confronting the dangers that 
lurk in illiteracy. 

RAILROAD ACCOfNTS.^ThQ Bureau was established in 
1878, and connected with the Interior Department. It was made 
necessary by the new policy of the government extending aid to 
the Pacific and other railroads. The aid to build these long, 
through and necessary lines was either by guarantee of their 
bonds or by gift of public lands. In either event the govern- 
ment felt that it should exercise a control over the management 
of such roads to the extent of auditing their accounts and seeing 
that all acts of Congress in their interest were respected. This 
is the duty of the Bureau of Railroad Accounts, whose chief is 
called Auditor. 

CAPITOL ARCHITECT.— This officer has control of the 
Capitol repairs and Capitol grounds. 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.— \jndQv the head of Public Lands 
we saw they were divided into Agricultural and Mineral Lands. 
This division requires a knowledge of their geological structure 
and underground resource. For this purpose the Geological 
Survey was established in 1879. ^^^ chief is called Director of 
the Geological Survey. The annual appropriations for carrying 
on this work of examining and classifying public lands according 
to their mineral substances and worth average ;^ 100,000. 

OTHER ADJUNCTS.— The Secretary of the Interior was 
in 1877 authorized to appoint a Commission of Entomologists ^ 
to inquire into the visitation of the Rocky Mountain Locusts 
and devise means for suppressing their annual invasions. He * 
appoints by law a Recorder of Deeds and Register of Wills for 
the District of Columbia. With his Department is connected 
the management of the Government Hospital for the Insane. 
This noble institution, erected at a cost of ;^500,ooo, and contain- 
ing nearly i ,000 inmates, is designed for the care and treatment 



246 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



of the insane of the Army and Navy and the indigent insane of 
the District of Columbia. It was founded in 1855 and stands 
on a conspicuous bluff south of the Anacostia River, in full view 
of the Capitol. So also it has the management of the Columbia 
Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, established 
in 1857, located at Washington, and designed for the free edu- 
cation of the deaf and dumb of the District of Columbia, and 
the paid education of pupils from all the States and Territories. 
The Freedmen's Hospital and Columbia Hospital for Women 
are also under the general superintendence of the Interior 
Department. 

SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR. 



Name. 


Appoin 


ted. 


Name. Appoin 


ted. 


Thomas H. Ewing, Ohio 


.Mar. 8, 


1849 


0. H. Browning, 111 July 27, 


1866 


Alex. H. H. Stuart, Va.. 


.Sept. 12, 


1850 


Jacob D. Cox, Ohio Mar. 5. 


1869 


Robert McClelland, Mich 


..Mar. 7, 


1853 


Columbus Delano, Ohio., .Nov. i, 


1870 


Jacob Thompson, Miss.. 


.Mar. 6, 


1857. 


Zachariah Chandler, Mich.Oct. 19, 


1875 


Calel) P. Smith, Ind 


.Mar. 5, 


1861 


Carl Schurz, Mo Mar. 1 2, 


1877 


John P. Usher, Ind 


..Jan. 8, 


1863 


S. J. Kirkwood, Iowa. . . .Mar. 5, 


1881 


James Harlan, Iowa.. . . 


.May 15, 


1865 


Henry M. Teller, Col April 6, 


1882 



THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. 

The government comes down closer to the people through the 
Post-Office Department than any other. It intimately concerns 
all of us and exists for our accommodation in the matter of 
correspondence with friends and business folk at home and 
abroad. The Constitution, Art. I., Sec. 8, authorizes the estab- 
lishment of Post-offices and Post-roads. This is not peculiar to 
our government. All civilized powers assume to do the ^ame 
thing for their people, and nearly all in the same way, so much 
so at least that what is known as a Postal Union has become 
possible, whereby different countries agree to recognize our 
stamps on letters and engage to carry them through their mails, 
we doing the same toward their stamps and with their letters. 
This wonderful triumph of political civilization brings the peo- 
ple of all countries in the Postal Union as closely together as if 
they were of one country. 

The earliest Post-Office System in our country arose under 
act of Sept. 22, 1789. It was a crude affair, run in connection 



RULING NATIONALLY. 247: 

with the Treasury Department, though presided over by an 
officer called the Postmaster-General, as to-day. There were^ 
then 75 post-offices in the country, and the routes extended over 
1,875 miles. It cost the country in 1790, ;^32,i40, and the re- 
ceipts were ;^37,935. Now there are in round numbers 48,000 
post-offices, a routeage of 350,000 miles, an annual revenue of 
;^33,000,000, and an expenditure somewhat in excess of this 
revenue. Mail facilities are enjoyed by the people in even 
remote places. It has always been the policy of the government 
tQ favor this method of intercommunication not more for purposes 
of business than to foster exchange of thought and a truly educa" 
tional spirit. It ha*s never been a part of this policy to make 
money out of the system. The cost has therefore, as a rule, 
been in excess of the profit, measured in strict dollars and cents. 
As the profit approximated the cost, there has been a reduction 
of rates of postage. Many are yet alive who remember the old 
letter rate of six cents and over, and very many who remember 
the five-cent rate. Then came the uniform rate of three cents 
for every two ounces, and in 1883 the two-cent rate. It is very 
probable that a one-cent rate will prevail before the end of the 
century, for the system proves that cheapness of rate is more 
than met by increased amount of matter mailed, especially in 
populous communities. 

A great stride was made in our postal system by act of May 
8, 1794. But in 1829 the grand step was taken which made it 
a separate system. Then the Post-Office Department was de- 
tached from the Treasury Department, and the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral made responsible for its management. He became a mem-^ 
ber of the Cabinet, and a direct adviser with the President. 

DUTIES OF POSTMASTER.— ThG general duties of the 
Postmaster-General are to conduct the multiform and intricate 
accounts of the postal service ; originate and distribute books, 
blanks and forms ; establish and discontinue post-offices ; appoint 
postmasters ; negotiate postal treaties with foreign countries ; 
report to Congress annually the condition of his office ; execute 
all laws relating to the postal service. He has more appoint- 
ments than any other Department official, and his responsibility^ 



248 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

never ceases till it reaches down into the very bosom of the 
masses. 

POST-OFFICES. — The machinery of the Department is 
largely outside of it^ and it works in every city, hamlet and far 
corner of the land. The postal routes are established by law. 
They are not always wisely laid down at first, but time and the 
drift of settlement generally cure all defects. The Department, 
following the routes, establishes post-offices, appoints postmasters 
and places the people in contact with the service. All this is 
fully in the hands of the Department. Postmasters receiving 
over';^i,ooo salary must have their nominations confirmed by 
the Senate, and as a rule they are appointed by the President. 
All minor appointments are made by the Postmaster-General 
directly. Postmasters are graded, and paid accordingly. 

OTHER FEATURES.— ThQ postal system has been very 
growthy, and prolific of many new features, all tending to make 
it more convenient and safe. The sending of money in small 
sums by mail was a constant invitation to robbery and led to 
many losses. The attempt to secure greater safety by means of 
a registry of letters did not amount to much. Then the money 
order feature was introduced, by which money can be sent with 
entire safety. Sums up to ;^50 can thus be sent from, one Money 
Order Office, payable at another. There are now 6,500 of these 
offices, and the amount transmitted through them annually 
aggregates several millions. They are the poor man's bank, 
through which he can send drafts to any part of this country 
and to many foreign countries. The propriety of a postal-sav- 
ing bank has often been mooted. But we are not yet quite far 
enouGfh on for such an advanta2:eous feature. 

The Postal Note feature was authorized in 1883. A deposit 
of less than $$ at any Money Order Office will entitle one to a 
note for the amount of his deposit less a fee of five or ten cents, 
which he can use as money for 90 days, and which will be re- 
deemed at any Money Order Office on demand. It is a handy 
note for transmission by letter. 

The Letter Carrier feature is a modern one. It exists, or may 
exist, in any city with a population of 20,000, or in which the 



RULING NATIONALLY. 



249 



post-ofifice yields ;^20,000 a year. In such cities carriers gather 
and deliver the mail matter, to the great convenience of business 
men. 

The Railway Service is also a new feature. By law all navi- 
gable waters of the United States, all canals and railroads, are 
established postal routes, and the mails were carried thereon in 
the ordinary pouches, the distribution being made at some 
central office. The Railway Service introduced on the Rail 
routes a Postal car or cars, officered by mail agents whose duty 
it is to collect and distribute all the mail matter on that route. 
It is a post-office on wheels, and a very complete and popular 
institution. 



POSTMASTERS-GENERAL. 



Name. 
Samuel Osgood, Mass. . . . 
Timothy Pickering, Pa. . . . 
Joseph Habersham, Ga, . . 
Gideon Granger, Conn. . . . 
Return J. Meigs, Jr., Ohio, 

John McLean, Ohio 

William T, Barry, Ky . . . . 

Amos Kendall, Ky 

John M. Niles, Conn 

Francis Granger, N. Y. . . . 
Charles A. Wickliffe, Ky. . 

Cave Johnson, Tenn 

Jacob Collamer, Ver 

Nathan K. Hall, N. Y.... 
Sam'l D. Hubbard, Conn.. 



Appointed. 


Sept. 26, 


1789 


Aug. 12, 


1791 


Feb. 25, 


1795 


N.ov. 28, 


1801 


Mar. 17, 


1814 


June 26, 


1823 


Mar. 9, 


1829 


May I, 


1835 


May 25, 


1840 


Mar. 6, 


1841 


Sept. 13, 


1841 


Mar. 6, 


1845 


Mar. 8, 


1849 


July 23, 


1850 


Aug. 31, 


1852 



Name. 
James Campbell, Penna.. 
Aaron V. Brown, Ttnn., 

Joseph Holt, Ky 

Horatio King, Me 

Montgomery Blair, Md. . . 
William Dennison, Ohio. 
Alex. W. Randall, Wis.. 
John A. J. Creswell, Md. 
Marshall Jewell, Conn. . . 
James N. Tyner, Ind. . . 
David McK. Key, Tenn. 
Horace Maynard, Tenn.. 
Thomas L. James, N. Y. 
Timothy O. Howe, Wis. 
Waller Q. Gresham, Ind. 



Appointed. 
.Mar. 5, 1853 
.Mar. 6, 1857 
.Mar. 14, 1859 
.Feb. 12, 1861 
.Mar. 5, 1861 
.Sept. 24, 1864 
.July 25, 1866 
.Mar. 5, 1869 
.Aug. 24, 1874 
.July 12, 1876 
Mar. 12, 1877 
.June 2, 1880 
.Mar. 5, 1881 
.Dec. 20, 1881 
.April 3, 1883 



DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. 

The presiding officer of this Department is the Attorney-Gen- 
eral, who is appointed by the President, and is a member of the 
Cabinet. His salary is ;^8,ooo. 

The act of 1789 authorizing an Attorney-General empowered 
him to " conduct all suits for the United States in the Supreme 
Court, give his advice and opinion on questions of law when re- 
quested by the President or heads of Departments." 

By act of 1861 he has charge of Attorneys and Marshals in 
all the Judicial Districts in the United States and Territories. 
He is not only legal adviser of the President and heads of De- 
partments, but must examine all titles to lands for public build- 



250 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



ings, forts, navy yards, etc. ; report to Congress the condition of 
his office ; distribute U. S. statutes to the lower courts ; designate 
the places of confinement for criminals under U. S. laws. He is 
a useful and invaluable official in the executive branch of the 
government, and ought to be well informed in both the law and 
practice of the U. S. Courts. The position is highly honorable 
and has been held by some of the brightest legal minds of the 
country. 



ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. 



Name. Appointed. 

Edmund Randolph, Va.. .Sepl. 26, 1789 

William Bradford, Pa Jan. 27, 1794 

Charles Lee, Va Dec. 10, 1795 

Theophilus Parsons, Mass. .Feb, 20, 1801 

Levi Lincoln, Mass Mar. 5, 1801 

Robert Smith, Md Mar. 3, 1805 

John Breckinridge, Ky... .Aug. 7, 
Ccesar A. Rodney, l^a. . . .Jan, 28, 
William Pinkney, Md, . . .Dec. ri, 

Richard Rush, Pa Feb, 10, 

William Wirt, Va Nov. 13, 

John M. Berrien, Ga Mar. 9, 1829 

Roger B. Taney, Md July 20, 1831 

Benj. F. Butler,' N. Y.. Nov. 

Felix Grundy, Tenn July 

Henry D. Gilpin, Pa Jan. 

John J. Crittenden, Ky. . ..Mar. 

Hugh S. Legare, S. C Sept. 

John Nelson, Md July 

John Y. Mason, Va Mar. 



[805 

:8o7 

[811 

14 

17 



15, ^^33 
1838 
1840 
1841 
1841 
1843 
1845 



6, 



Name. 

Nathan Clifford, Me 

Isaac Toucey, Conn 

Reverdy Johnson, Md. . . . 
Jno. J, Crittenden, Ky. . . . 

Caleb Cushing, Ma'-s 

Jeremiah S. Black, Pa. . . . 
Edwin M, Sianton, Pa.. . . 

Edward B^.tes, Mo 

T. J. Coffee (^^. m.), Pa.. 

James Speed, Ky 

Henry Stanbery, O 

William M. Evarts, N. Y. 
E. Rock wood Hoar, Mass 
Am( s T. Akerman, Ga.. . 
Geo. H, Williams, Oregon 
Edwards Pierrepont, N. Y 

Alphonso Taft, Ohio 

Charles Devens, Mass . . 

Wayne McVeagh, Pa 

Benj. H. Brewster, Pa.: . . . 



Appointed. 
Oct. 17, 1846 
June-2i, 1848 
Mar. 8, 1849 
July 22, 1850 
Mar. 7, 1853 
Mar. 6,' 1857 
Dec, 20, i860 
Mar, 5, 1861 
.June 22, 1863 
Dec, 2, 1864 
■Jan, 23, 1866 
, J Illy 15, 1868 
.Mar, 5, 1869 
.June 23, 1870 
.Dec. 14, 1871 
.April 26, 1875 
.May 22, 1876 
Mar, 12, 1877 
Mar, 5, 1881 
Dec. 19, 1881 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

The officei; in charge is the Commissioner of Agriculture. 
The Agricultural Bureau was created in 1862, and only lately 
erected into a separate Department. Its chief is not a Cabinet 
officer. The Department is designed to be the centre toward 
which shall be attracted information respecting agriculture and 
whence it shall flow to all the people. It is further a Depart- 
ment of experiments with agricultural products and industries 
and a source of supply for new and rare seeds and plants. The 
Commissioner is expected to correspond with scientists in all 
countries, collect statistics bearing on agricultural subjects, pub- 
lish such works as will best spread the information he gathers, 
investigate diseases of domestic animals, inquire into the nature 



RULING NATIONALLY. 251 

and prevention of injury to crops by insects, worms, birds and 
all enemies of plants and grains. Much is hoped of this youth- 
ful Department. The propagating garden and museum attached 
to it are already interesting. 

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

USES OF THE yUDICIARY.—ThQ third co-ordinate de- 
partment of the national government is the Judicial Department, 
or The Judiciary. The existence of such a Department, or 
branch of the government, with functions independent of and 
separate from the legislative and executive branches, yet co- 
ordinate with them, is indispensable to the safety of a free gov- 
ernment. Wherever there is no judiciary to interpret, pronounce 
and execute laws, two things must happen. ist. Either the 
government will perish through sheer weakness and confusion, 
or, 2d, the judicial power will be absorbed by the other two 
branches to the utter extinction of civil and political liberty. 
Montesquieu has wisely said: "There is no liberty if the judi- 
ciary be not separated from the legislative and executive power." 
And Judge Story says : " In the national government the judicial 
power is equally as important as in the States. The want of it 
was a vital defect in the Confederation. Without it the laws of 
the Union would be perpetually in danger of being controverted 
by the laws of the States. The national government would be 
reduced to a servile dependence on the latter for the due execu- 
tion of its powers, and we should have reacted over again the 
same solemn mockery which began in the neglect and ended in 
the ruin of the Confederation. Power without adequate means to 
enforce it is like a body in a suspended state of animation. For 
all practical purposes it is as if its faculties were extinguished. 
A single State might under such circumstances, at its mere 
pleasure, suspend the whole operations of the Union." 

The two grand uses of the Judiciary are (i) to execute the 
powers of the government. In this it co-operates directly with 
the Executive branch, while it acts independently of it. (2) It 
secures uniform and certain operation of those powers and of 
the laws made under them. In this it co-operates with the Legisr. 



252 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

lative branch, helping it here and checking it there, making its 
edicts certain in results, and assuring the people against the 
oppression of unconstitutional enactments. 

SUPREME COURT.— ''ThQ judicial power of the United 
States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior 
courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and estab- 
lish. The judges of both the Supreme and inferior courts shall 
hold their offices during good behavior, and shall at stated times 
receive for their services a compensation which shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office." — Art. III., Con. 

Thus the establishment of a Supreme Court is imperative. 
The establishment of inferior courts is left to the discretion of 
Congress. Congress has acted promptly in both instances. 
Among its first acts was one looking to the formation of the 
Supreme Court, and subsequent acts passed in obedience to the 
demands of .legal business have contributed to the formation of 
our present imposing judicial system. 

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest tribu- 
nal, or court of last resort, in the nation. Its decisions settle 
finally the law of the land. It has both original and appellate 
jurisdiction. Its original jurisdiction extends to civil causes in 
which a State is a party, which involve public ministers and 
matters affecting the marine. Its appellate jurisdiction is general ; 
that is, it must hear all appeals from the Circuit and District 
Courts. 

It consists of a Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. 
The former receives ;^ 10,500, and the latter receive •;^ 10,000 a 
year. They are appointed by the President, by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate. Their appointment is for life 
or good behavior, though by a recent enactment they may re- 
tire at seventy years of age and still draw their pay, provided 
they have held their commissions for ten years.* They are thus 
removed as far as possible from party influences. 

The number of Judges of the Supreme Court has not always 

* Under this act three Justices have already withdrawn, viz., Noah H. Swayne, 
Ohio; William Strong, Pa.; and Ward Hunt, N. Y., their salary of |lio,ocx) being 
continued. 



RULING NATIONALLY. 



253 



remained the same. At its first session in 1790 it consisted of a 
Chief Justice and five Associates. The Associates were increased 
to six in 1807, to eight in 1837, to nine in 1863, In 1865 they 
were decreased to eight, and in 1867 to seven, but were increased 
to eight in 1870. 

The Supreme Court must hold one regular term a year, com- 
mencing on the second Monday in October, and such special 
terms as is necessary. Its regular sessions are always at the 
Capitol. 

CHIEF JUSTICES OF UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. 



Term of service. 

John Jay, N. Y 1789-95 

Jotjn Rutledge, S. C 1795-95 

Oliver Ellsworth, Conn 1 796-1800 

John Marshall, Va 1801-35 



Term of service. 

Roger B. Taney, Md 1836-64 

Salmon P. Chase, O 1864-73 

Morrison R. Waite, O 1873-. • 



ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. 



Term of service. 

John Catron, Tenn 1837-65 

John McKinley, Ala 1837-52 

Peter V. Daniel, Va 1841-60 

Samuel Nelson, N. Y 1845-72 

Levi Woodbury, N. H 1 845-5 1 

Robert C. Grier, Pa 1846-69 

Benjamin R. Curtis, Mass. , . . 1851-57 

John A. Campbell, Ala 1853-61 

Nathan Clifford, Me 1858-81 

Noah H. Swayne, 1861-81 

Samuel F. Miller, Iowa 1862-.. 

David Davis, 111 1862-77 

Stephen J. Field, Cal 1863-. . 

William M. Strong, Pa 1870-80 



Term of service. 

John Rutledge, S. C 1789-91 

William Cushing, Mass 1789-1810 

James Wilson, Pa 1789-98 

John Blair, Va 1789-96 

Robert H. Harrison, Md 1789-90 

James Iredeil, N. C 1790-99 

Thomas Johnson, Md 1 791-93 

William Patterson, N. J 1793-1806 

Samuel Chase. Md 1796-1811 

Bushrod Washington, Va 1 798-1829 

Alfred Moore, N. C 1799-1804 

William Johnson, S. C 1804-34 

Brockholst Livingston, N. Y. . 1806-23 

Thomas Todd Ky 1807-26 

Joseph Story, Mass 1811-45 

Gabriel Duval, Md 181 1-36 

Smith Thompson, N. Y 1823-43 

Robert Trimble, Ky 1826-28 

John McLean, O 1829-61 

Henry Baldwin, Pa 1830-46 

James M. Wayne, Ga 1835-67 

Philip P. Barbour, Va 1836-41 

CIRCUIT COURTS.— An important part of the U. S. Judi- 
ciary, and second to the Supreme Court, are the Circuit Courts. 
There are nine of these Courts now, or rather nine Judicial Cir- 
cuits or Districts,* say one for each Judge of the Supreme Court. 

* Care must be taken not to confound the Circuit with the District. There are 
nine Circuit Districts, each composed of a number of minor Districts, no one of 
which can be smaller than a State. 



Joseph P. Bradley, N. J.. .. 


..1870-.. 


Ward Hunt, N.Y 


..1872-82 


John M. Hailan, Ky 


1877-.. 


William B. Woods, Ga. . . . 


..1880-.. 


Stanlev Matthews, 0. . . . . . 


..1881-.. 


Horace Gray, Moss . 


..1881-.. 


SaiTluel Blatchford, N. Y. . 


..1882-.. 



254 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

In order to facilitate the work of the Supreme Court, the entire 
country is thus divided into these nine Judicial Circuits or Dis- 
tricts, and a Judge of the Supreme Court is assigned to each 
District, which he is expected to visit at least once in two years. 
He is thus said to make his circuit ; whence the name. Circuit 
Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court takes his cir- 
cuit with the rest. The Circuit for the respective Judges is 
determined by allotment. Though this Supreme Court Judge is 
really the presiding officer in each Circuit Court, it is easy to see 
that such Court must be closed a great part of the time if 
its operation depended on his presence. The Supreme Court 
judges are busy most of the year with their session at the Cap- 
ital. Even when on a circuit made up of several States, tliey 
must with difficulty hold a court in each State, which they are 
required to do. There is, therefore, appointed for each of the 
Circuits a permanent Circuit Judge, who holds the Sessions of 
the Circuit Courts, and who is visited by the allotted Supreme 
Court Judge, and assisted by him when he appears. Each of 
these Circuit Judges receives a salary of $6,000 a year. They 
are appointed by the President by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate. 

These Circuit Courts being minor courts are not courts of 
final resort. They are, howev.er, appellate courts for many pur- 
poses, appeals being taken to them from the District Courts, as 
we shall see. They have original jurisdiction of a class of causes 
denied to the District Courts, but for the most part have con- 
current jurisdiction with the latter. The Circuits are numbered 
from one to nine, and are sometimes familiarly spoken of as 
Justice So-and-So's Circuit,. after the name of the Justice allotted 
to it. 

The First Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Maine, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. 

The Second Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Ver- 
mont, Connecticut, and New York. 

The Third Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. 

The Fourth Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Mary- 
land, West Virginia, Virginia, North and South Carolina. 



RULING NATIONAi.l.Y. 255 

The Fifth Judicial Circuit eiribraces the districts of Georgia, 
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. 

The Sixth Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Ohio, 
Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 

The Seventh Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Indiana, 
Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

The Eighth Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of Min- 
nesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, and Ne- 
braska. 

The Ninth Judicial Circuit embraces the districts of California, 
Oregon, and Nevada. 

Appeals from the Circuit Courts are direct to the Supreme 
Court. An act of March 3, 1875, gave the Circuit Courts con- 
current jurisdiction with State Courts in a large number of cases 
arising under the Constitution and treaties of the United States, 
and likewise concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts. 

DISTRICT COURTS.— In order to fjurther facilitate judicial 
work and give greater convenience to the people, the National 
Judiciary is again divided into a lower grade of Courts, called 
District Courts. Perhaps it would be better to say the country 
is divided into a number of judicial districts, in each of which is 
a District Court presided over by a District Judge. Twenty-two 
of the States are each a Judicial District. The others are divided 
into two and three Judicial Districts, according to 'population and 
the amount of business transacted. The salaries of the District 
Judges range from ;^5,ooo to ;^3,500. They are a more popular 
court than the Circuit Court, because closer to the people, and 
as we have seen, their jurisdiction is nearly the same ; the same, 
in fact, where there is no Circuit Court ; and indeed, a Dis^trict 
Judge, or two of them sitting together, may hold a Circuit Court. 
There are now fifty-nine Judicial Districts (there must be at least 
one in each State), and the same number of District Courts and 
Judges, District Attorneys, District Clerks and Marshals. All 
of these officers are appointed by the President and Senate, 
except the clerks, who are chosen by the courts. The District 
Attorneys prosecute all delinquents for crimes under United 
States laws, and all civil causes in which the government is con- 



256 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

cerned. The U. S. Marshal has'a function analogous to that of 
the County Sheriff. 

COURT OF CLAIMS.— This Court was created as late as 
1855, and given enlarged power and increased force in 1863. It 
may be properly classed as a part of the Judicial System of the 
United States, for appeals are had from it to the Supreme Court, 
where the amount involved exceeds ;^3,ooo. It was created as a 
relief to both Congress and the Courts, and has jurisdiction of a 
class of cases founded on laws of Congress, contracts with the 
United States, or on claims against the government, where the 
amount rather than the fact is in dispute, and where final relief 
is to be had through an appropriation by the Congress. It has 
proved a convenient court, because it works more expeditiously 
than a Congressional investigation, and lifts a great number of 
cases above partisan level. It tries cases for and against the 
United States, and in general all matters referred to it by Con- 
gress. Its decisions when favorable to the claimant are reported 
to Congress, and the necessary appropriation follows. Its powers 
and rules of procedure are now akin to those of other courts, 
but proceedings therein are begun by petition, as if the applica- 
tion were made direct to Congress; Its officers are a Chief 
Justice and four Judges, whose salaries are ;^4,500 each. 

SUPREME COURT, D. T.— This important court is a nec- 
essary part of the Judiciary of the United States, the District of 
Columbia being under a government provided by Congress. It 
is composed of a Chief Justice and four associates, the former at 
a salary of $\,^qo, the latter at $\,ooo each. It possesses the 
same jurisdiction as a Circuit Court. Any one of its Justices 
may hold a special term, and when doing so his court ranks as 
a District Court of the United States. It is also a Criminal 
Court for the trial of offences in the District. 

DISTRICT ATTORNEYS—ThQ Attorney-General of the 
United States, appointed by the President, and ranking as a 
Member of the Cabinet, is, in common- spyeech, the District At- 
torney for the Supreme Court. He is the prosecuting officer of 
that court.' So the District Attorneys, appointed in the same 
way as the Attorney-General, but in and for their respective dis- 



I 



RULING NATIONALLY. 257 

tricts, are the prosecuting attorneys of the District Courts. As 
a general thing there is a District Attorney for each District 
Court, though in one or two States which contain two or more 
Districts there is only one District Attorney. He is the attorney 
for the United States, just as the District Attorney in any county 
of a State is the attorney for the Commonwealth. His duty is 
to prosecute in his District all crimes cognizable under the laws 
of the United States, and all civil actions in which the govern- 
ment is concerned. 

U. S. MARSHALS. — As already indicated these officers are 
attached to every District Court, and their function is similar 
to an ordinary County Sheriff. They serve the processes of the 
court, and execute its judgments and decrees. They are equally 
the officers of the Circuit Courts. 

yURIES. — The machinery of the Judiciary would be very 
imperfect without mention of the two kinds of juries in use. 
They are required by the Constitution, see Art. V. of the 
amendments. The Grand Jury is organized, like that in the 
judicial districts of the States, and has the same powers 
and duties. It is that part of the judicial system which first 
inquires into a charge of crime brought ag-ainst a citizen, and no 
indictment for such crime can be presented to the court unless a 
majority of said jury certify that there are good reasons for be- 
lieving that the charge is well founded. It is the body of citizens 
which stands between a criminal and all petty, spiteful and illy- 
founded charges, and protects him from the annoyance and ex- 
pense of trials without probable cause. When the Gran4 Jury 
is called by a Circuit Court it must inquire into all the crimes 
against the laws of the United States in that Circuit ; when 
called by a District Court, its inquiries extend only to the District. 

The Petit (small) jury has the same uses and powers as in the 
County Courts. It is called by a Judge of the District or Circuit 
Court, on subpoena, is composed of a panel of forty-eight men, 
from which the usual twelve are selected for the trial of a cause. 
A Grand Jury acts only in criminal cases ; both civil and criminal 
cases are tried before a Petit Jury. The finding of a Grand 
Jury is called a presentment or indictment — a presentment when it 
17 



258 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

acts from knowledge within itself, an indictment when it acts on 
knowledge derived from the District Attorney, or other person. 
The finding of a Petit Jury is called a verdict. The Grand Jury 
deliberates alone, the Petit Jury hears the evidence as presented 
in court, the pleas of the attorneys and the charge of the judges 
before it retires to deliberate. These remarks apply to Grand 
and Petit Juries in United States as well as State Courts. 

ADMIRALTY COURTS— In remote times, when judicial 
systems were narrow, there arose a set of courts separate from 
those of common law, called Admiralty and Maritime Courts. 
They have separate existence yet in many countries, but here 
Admiralty and Maritime causes are heard in the District Courts 
of the United States, which are thus said to have Admiralty and 
Maritime jurisdiction. There would be little use in keeping up 
this distinction but for the fact that the laws of Admiralty, which 
are laws respecting ships of war and warlike operations at sea, 
and Maritime laws, which are those respecting vessels engaged 
in commerce, are different from those relating to land affairs, and 
are a code in themselves, thus requiring, if not a separate set of 
courts and judges, at least a class of attorneys specially learned 
in Admiralty and Maritime matters. Cases within Admiralty 
and Maritime jurisdiction are not necessarily limited to those 
arising on the sea, but embrace those arising on the lakes and 
navigable rivers of the country. 

GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 

Congress provides a government for the Territories. Its form 
has become stereotyped, and it is in general a miniature of that 
enjoyed by the States. It recognizes the usual division of power 
into three branches. Executive, Legislative and Judicial. 

The Executive power is in a Governor, appointed by the 
President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for 
four years. His powers are akin to those of the State Govern- 
ors. He must reside in his Territory, is commander of the 
militia, may grant pardons and reprieves, commission officers, 
and in general must execute the laws. He has a Secretary, 
appointed for four years, who may act as Governor in case of a 



RULING NATIONALLY. 259 

vacancy. The salary of a Governor is ^2,600 and of a Secretary 
^1,800. 

The Legislative power is vested in a Legislative Assembly, 
composed of a Council and House of Representatives. The 
former is limited to twelve members and the latter to twenty-four. 
They are elected by the qualified voters of the Territory for two 
years. Sessions of the Assemblies are biennial, and limited to 
sixty days. Laws passed by both Houses and signed by the 
Governor are sent to Congress and if approved are operative, if 
not, null and void.* The Legislative power of a Territory is 
necessarily limited to subjects permitted by Congress. Every 
Territory has the right to send a Delegate to the House of Rep- 
resentatives of the United States, with power to speak but not 
to vote. 

The Judicial power of a Territory is in a Supreme Court, 
District Courts, Probate Courts and Justices of the Peace. Pro- 
bates and Justices of the Peace are provided for by the Territory 
itself The Supreme Court is composed of three judges (Dakota 
has four) appointed by the President and Senate. They hold one 
term annually. Then each Territory is divided into three 
Judicial districts, one for each Judge of the Supreme Court. The 
judge assigned to a district must hold court therein as often as 
the laws prescribe, and he must reside in his district after 
assignment. There is a United States Marshal and a District 
Attorney in each Territory, and each court is entitled to a 
clerk and minor officers. The salary of Territorial judges is 
;^3,ooo. 

All of the above is true of the Territories proper, but not of 
the Indian Country nor the District of Columbia. 

The government of the Indian Country is hardly describable. 
It is of course a dependency of the United States, but the 
design is that it shall be as independent as possible. The tribes 
have been assigned land, and left to regulate their internal affairs 
according to their own laws and customs, of course with the 
hope that as they grow civilized they will become full-fledged 

* Dakota, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming need not send their laws to Congress 
for approval. 



260 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

citizens, with institutions which will readily take the laws and 
customs of the nation. Crimes against the Indians by whites, 
and against whites by the Indians of this Territory, are taken 
cognizance of by the United States Courts in some of the 
adjoining districts. The government would protect the Indian 
Country against invasion, and the inhabitants thereof against 
such tumult as they could not control, but the theory connected 
with this magnificent reservation is that the inhabitants shall be 
let alone to work out their social, political, industrial and moral 
problems in their own way, or with such help as they choose to 
invite. 

The District of Columbia is governed by a Commission of 
three persons appointed by the President and Senate, one of 
whom must be an officer of the Engineer Corps, above the rank 
of Captain. He receives no additional pay. The other two, 
appointed for three years, from civil life, receive each ^5,000 a 
year. They have no powers except those conferred by Congress, 
and they are simply the Agents of Congress to suggest laws 
and execute those which are enacted. They control streets, 
bridges, aqueducts, sewers, appoint the trustees of public 
schools, regulate the maintenance of prisons, hospitals and re- 
formatory institutions, and do all that usually belongs to a corps 
of municipal regulators. They estimate for all municipal ex- 
penditures, and if their estimates are approved by the Secretary 
of the Treasury and by Congress, the Congress appropriates one- 
half of the amount and leaves the Commissioners to provide the 
balance by taxation of the property in the district. As we have 
passed along in our history of government machinery we have 
struck other offices connected with the District of Columbia, 
appointed by the President, giving to it a diversified but very 
complete government. 



RULING BY STATES; 

OR, 

THEIR GOVERNMENTS AND RESOURCES. 



ALABAMA. 




NAME. — From one of the Indian tribes of the southern 
Mississippi valley, " The Alabamas," meaning, " Here we rest,'* 

ADMISSION.— Ox^^mi^A as a Territoiy, March 3, 1 8 17; 
act of admission, Dec. 14, 1819; admitted, Dec. 14, 1819. 

AREA.^ — Square miles, 51,540; acres, 32,985,600; pop. to 
square mile, 24.5. 

POPULATION ^XiA rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1820 127,901 

1830 309.527 

1840 590.756 

1850 771,623 



Per cent, of 
increase. 



142.01 
90.86 
30.62 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

i860 964,201 24.96 

1870 996,992 340 

1880 1,262,505 26.6 



1880 by Classes. 



Males 622,629 Native 1,252,771 

Females. .639,876 Foreign... 9,734 

Dwellings 240,227 

Families / 248,961 

Voters — Males over 21 259,884 



"White 662,185 Chinese.:.. 4 

Black 600,103 Indians 213 

Persons to a dwelling 5.26 

«' " family. 5.07 

Natural militia, 18-44 213,192 



* These State areas are those found in the tenth (1880) census, as corrected for 
the same. All figures are from the last census, except those otherwise indicated. 

(261) 



262 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Counties. 1880. 

Autauga 13.108 

Baldwin 8,603 

Barbour . .y 33,979 

Bibb ;. 9.487 

Blount 15,369 

Bullock 29,066 

Butler 19,649 

Calhoun 19 '591 

Chambers 23,440 

Cherokee 19,108 

Chilton 10,793 

Choctaw 15.731 

Clarke 17,806 

Clay 12.938 

Cleburne 10,976 

Coffee 8,119 

Colbert 16.153 

Conecuh 12,605 

Coosa 13,113 

Covington 5,639 

Crenshaw 11,726 

Cullman 6.355 

Dale 12,677 

Dallas 48.433 

De Kalb 12,675 

Elmore 17.502 

Escambia 5,719 

Etowah 15,398 

Fayette 10,135 

Franklin 9,1 55 

Geneva 4,342 

Greene 21,931 

Hale 26,553 



By Counties for three Censuses. 

1870. i860. 

11,623 16.739 

6,004 7,530 

29,309 30,8x2 

7,469 11,894 

9,945 10,865 

24,474 •• •■ 

14,981 18,122 

13,980 21.539 

17,562 23,214 

11,132 18,360 

6,194 

12,676 13,877 

14,663 15,049 

9.560 

8,017 

6. 1 71 9,623 

12,537 

9,574 ",3" 

11,945 19.273 

4,^.68 6,469 

11,156 



11,325 

40,7 '5 

7,126 

M,477 
4,041 

10,109 
7,136 
8,006 
2,959 

18,399 

21,792 



J2.197 

33.625 
10,705 



12,850 
18,627 



30,859 



Counties. i! 

Henry 18, 

Jackson 25, 

Jefferson 23, 

Lamar 12, 

Lauderdale 21, 

Lawrence 21, 

Lee 27, 

Limestone 21, 

Lowndes 31, 

Macon 17, 

Madison 37, 

Marengo 30, 

Marion 9, 

Marshall 14, 

Mobile 48, 

Monroe 17, 

Montgomery 52, 

Morgan 16, 

Perry 30 

Pickens 21 

Pike 20 

Randolph 16 

Russell 24, 

Saint Clair 14, 

Shelby 17, 

Sumter 28 

Talladega 23 

Tallapoosa 23 

Tuscaloosa 24 

Walker 9 

Washington 4 

Wilcox ..•. 31 

Winston 4, 



880. 


1870. 


i860. 


,761 


14,191 


14,918 


,114 


19,410 


18283 


,272 


12,345 


11,746 


,142 


8.893 




,035 


15,091 


17,420 


,392 


16,658 


13,97s 


,262 


21,750 





,600 


15.017 


i5,3'6 


,176 


25,719 


27,716 


.371 


17.7^7 


26,8.2 


,625 


31,267 


26,451 


,8qo 


26,151 


31,171 


.364 


• 6,059 


11,182 


.585 


9,871 


11,472 


.653 


49.3 «i 


41,131 


,091 


14.214 


15,667 


.3.S6 


43.704 


35,904 


,428 


12.187 


11,335 


>,74l 


24.975 


27,724 


,479 


17,690 


22,316 


,640 


17423 


24,435 


.575 


12,000 


20,059 


.8.^7 


21,636 


26,592 


,462 


9,360 


11,013 


.236 


I2.2I8 


12,618 


,728 


24,109 


24,035 


,360 


18,064 


23,520 


,401 


16,963 


23,827 


,957 


20,08 1 


23,200 


,479 


6,543 


7,980 


.5^,8 


3.912 


4.669 


,828 


28,377 


24,618 


.253 


4.15s 


3,576 



EDUCATION, — Colleges, 4; instructors, 47 ; students, 485. 

Public schools, 4,629 ; value of school property, ;^299,599 ; 
teachers, 4,637; teachers* salaries, ;^388,I28; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^505,20i ; expended for same, ;^430,i3i ; school age, 
7 to 21 years; school population (1882), 401,002; pupils en- 
rolled (1882), 177,428; average attendance (1882), 114,577; 
average length of school session in 1882, 79 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 370,279, or 43.5 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years. Persons over ten years who 
cannot write : native white, 1 11, 040 ; foreign white, 727 ; colored, 
Chinese and Indians, 321,680; total, 433,447, or 50.9 per cent, 
of all persons over ten years. 

Daily papers, 7; others, 122; total, 129. Circulation, 86,813. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 380,63a; 
in professional and personal service, 72,211 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 16,953 ; in manufactures, mechanics and mining, 29,996. 

AGRICULTURR— dumber of farms, 135,864; total acres in 
farms, 18,855,334; improved acres, 6,375,706 ; average size of 
farms, 139 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^78,954,648; 



RULING BY STATES. 263 

value of farm implements, ;^3,788,978; total value of farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, $^6,%'j2f)(^^. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 5,281 bush. 

Buckwheat 363 " 

Butter 7»997,7I9 lbs. 

Cheese. 14.091 " 

Cotton 699,654 bales. 

Hay 10,363 tons. 

Indian Corn 25,451,278 bush. 

Milk 267,387 gal. 

Oats 3>039>639 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products $362,263 

Potatoes, Irish 334,925 bush, 

" sweet 3,448,819 " 

Rice 810,889 lbs. 

Rye 28,402 bush. 

Sugar & Mol., 94 hhds. 795,199 gal. 

Tobacco 452,426 lbs. 

Wheat 1,529,657 bush. 

Wool 762,207 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number- 
Other cattle 404,213 

Sheep 347,538 

Swine i ,252,462 



Number. 

Horses 1 13,950 

Mules and asses 121,081 

Working oxen 75,534 

Milch cows -. . . . 271,443 

Total value of live-stock on farms June i, 1880 $23,787,681 

MANUFACTURES. — Number of establishments, 2,070; capi- 
tal invested, ;^9,668,oo8 ; hands employed, 10,019; wages paid, 
;^2, 500,504; value of materials, ;^8,545,520; value of products, 

^13,565.504. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Cotton goods $1,352,000 I Iron and steel $1,452,856 

Flour and mill products 4,315,174 ' Lumber sawed 2,649,634 

Total steam and water power in use, 27,576 horse-power. 
J///V7zV6'.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $1,301 

Coal, bituminous 322,934 tons 475,559 

Iron ore , 184,110 " 189,108 

Value of all mining products $665,968 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— 'R.BAho^.ds in 1883, 1,809 
miles of line ; miles operated, 1,5 19 ; cost, ;^6i,6i2,9i7 ; total rail- 
road investment, ;^68,903,393. Steam craft, 43 ; tonnage, 7,168 ; 
value, 1^257,600. Sail craft, 73 ; tonnage, 7,937 ; value, ;^ 198,400. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^9i,740,536; of personal property, ;^64,285,883 ; State 
taxation (1883), ;^9o6,8o7, rate 65 cents on ^^loo; county taxa- 
tion, ;^682,85i ; city and town, ;^388,78i ; State debt (1883) ;^ 12,- 
164,023 ; county and city debts, ;^5,656,78o. 



264 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

GO VERNMENT. — Capital, Montgomery. Governor elected 
for two years. Salary, ;^3,cxx). The other State officers — term 
of each two years — are, Secretary of State, salary, ;^i,8oo; 
Treasurer, ;^ 2,100; Auditor, ;^i,8oo; Attorney-General, ^i, $00; 
Adjutant-General, ;^i,500; Superintendent Public Instruction, 
^2,250; Librarian, ;^ 1, 500. 

The Legislature is composed of 33 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Legislature meets biennially on Tuesday after second 
Monday in November. Sessions limited to 50 days. Salary of 
a Legislator, $^ per day and 10 cents mileage. 

State elections held every two years on first Monday in Au- 
gust. Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tuesday 
after first Monday in November.* 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two As- 
sociate Justices, elected by the people for six years. Salary of 
each, ;^3,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 8 ; Presidential electors, 10. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Repl or opp. Maj. 

1872 President 79,444 90,272 10,828 R. 

1874 Governor 107,118 93,928 13,190 D. 

1876 Governor 100,837 56,091 44,7460, 

1876 President 102,989 68,708 34,281 D. 

1878 Governor 89,571 89,5711:). 

1880 Governor 134,213 42,458 91,7550. 

1880 President 89,928 56,126 33,8020. 

1882 Governor 101,841 46,839 55,0020. 



ALASKA TERRITORY. 
For statistical and other purposes the Census Bureau divides 
Alaska into the following sections : 

Sq. miles. White pop. Creole. Native. Total. 

Arctic 125,245 ... ... 3,094 3,094 

Yukon 176,715 18 19 ^,'^IZ 6,870 

Kuskokvim 114,975 3 i" 8,797 8,911 

Aleutian 14,610 82 479 1,890 2,451 

Kadiak 70,884 34 917 3,401 4,352 

Southeastern 28,980 293 230 7,225 7,748 

Totals 531,409 430 i»756 31*240 33,426 

* As to Congressional and Presidential elections see Ruling Nationally, page 197. 



RULING BY STATES. 265 

The ascertained products in 1880 were, gold $S>9S^y ^^^ silver 
$$l, besides fur skins of unknown value. 

The government, as we have seen, is military or naval ; that is 
the public peace and interests are in the keeping of an officer 
stationed at the principal port or coast town. See Alaska, pages 
96 and 127. 



ARIZONA TERRITORY. 

NAME.— From the Arizona Indians ; Arizona meaning "sand 
hills," 

ORGANIZATION.— Act of Feb. 24, 1863. 

AREA. — Square miles, 112,920; acres, 72,268,800; popula- 
tion to square mile, 0.36. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 

1870 . 9,658 Per cent» of increase. 

1880 40,440 318.7. 

1880 ^7 Classes. 

Male 28,202 Native 24,391 White. .. .35,160 Chinese 1,632 

Female. . 12,238 Foreign . .,16,049 Black .... 155 Indians. . . .3,493 

Dwellings 9,033 Persons to a dwelling 4.48 

Families 9»536 " " family 4.24 

Voters — Males over 21 20,398 Natural mililia, 18-44 18,144 

By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880 1870 i860 

Apache 5,283 

Mariccpa 5,689 

Mohave 1,190 179 

Pima 17,006 5,716 



Counties. 1880 1870 i860 

Pinal 3,044 

Yavapai 5,^13 2,142 

Yuma 3,215 1,621 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, loi ; value of school prop- 
erty, ;^ 11 3,599; teachers, lOi ; teachers* salaries, ^56,744; receipts 
for school purposes, ^103,028 ; expended for same (1882), ;^98,- 
268; school age, 6-21 years; school population, 10,283; pupils 
enrolled, 3,844; average attendance, 2,847; average length of 
school session, 109 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 5,496, or 16.7 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Persons over ten years who cannot write : native white, 1,225 > 
foreign white, 3,599; colored, Chinese and Indians, 1,018; total, 
5,842, or 17.7 per cent, of all persons over ten years. 



266 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Daily papers, 6; others, ii ; total, 17. Circulation, 14,350. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 3,435 ; in 
professional and personal service, 8,210; in trade and transporta- 
tion, 3,252 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 7,374. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, j6j ; total acres in farms, 
135,573; in^proved acres, 56,071; average size of farms, 177 
acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 1,1 27,946; value of imple- 
ments, ;^88,8ii ; total value of all farm products sold, consumed 
or on hand, ;$6i4,327. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 239,05 1 bush. 

Butler 61,817 lbs. 

Cheese 18,360 " 

Hay 5,606 tons. 

Indian Corn 34,746 bush. 

Milk 42,618 K'al. 

Oats 564 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products J?5,530 

Potatoes, Irish 26,249 I>ush. 

" sweet 5,303 " 

Tobacco - 6oD lbs. 

Wheat 136,427 bush. 

Wool 313,698 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 34,843 

vSheep 76,524 

Swine 3,819 



Number. 

Horses 6,798 

Mules and asses 891 

Working oxen 984 

Miich cows 9,156 

Total value of all live-stock on farms June i, 1880 ^1,167,980 

MANUFACTURES.— IS^umhQr of establishments, 66; capital 
invested, $272,600; hands employed, 220; wages paid, ;^iii,- 
180; value of materials, ;^38o,023 ; value of products, $618*365. 

Total steam and water power in use, 530 horse-power. 

^/iV7A^6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold ^211,965 

Silver 2,325,825 

Copper ingots 3*183,750 lbs. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ThQVQ were 412 miles of 
railroad projected or built in 1882, but none operated from 
within. The cost of building and equipment was $29,537,212, 
and total investment, $30,1 19,000. The water craft numbered 4 
barges, of a tonnage of 554 tons; value $1,600. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed valuation of real 
estate, $3,922,961 ; of personal property, $5,347,253; territorial 
taxation, $56,620; county, $220,471; city and local, $16,945; 
territorial debt, none; county and local indebtedness, $377,501. 



RULING BY STATES. 267 

GOVERNMENT.— C2.^\t3.\, Prescott. Governor appointed 
by the President for four years. Salary, $2,600. Legislature 
composed of 12 Senators and 24 Representatives, all elected for 
two years. Salary of Legislators $4. per day and 20 cents mile- 
age. Sessions held biennially on first Monday in January and 
limited to 60 days. Territorial elections' held every two years 
and, with presidential election, on Tuesday after first Monday in 
November. The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and 
two associates, appointed by the President for four years. Salary 
of judges, ;^3,ooo. 

POLITICS,— VotQ for Delegate : 

Dem, 
1880 4,095 

1882 6,121 



Rep. 


Maj. 


3,606 


489 D. 


5.H^ 


980 D. 



ARKANSAS. 



NAME. — From the word Kansas, with the prefix of arc^ a 
bow. The story runs that the name Arkansas was applied to a 
portion of the Kansas tribe of Indians who separated from the 
main stem, and were noted for the superiority of their bows. 
The word was spelled Arkansaw, in the act creating it a Terri- 
tory, and the Legislature recently affirmed that as the pronuncia- 
tion. Popular name, " The Bear State." 

^Z)J//55/(9iV.— Organized as a Territory March 2, 1819. 
Act of admission, and actual admission, June 15, 1836. 

AREA. — Square miles, 53,045 ; acres, 33,948,800; population 
to the square mile, 15.13. 



268 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



POPULATION and rate of increase 

Per cent of 



Census. Pop. 

i860 435.450 

1870 484,471 

1880 802,525 



Per cent of 
increase, 
107.4 
II. 2 
65.6 



Census. Pop. increase. 

1820..... 14,255 

1830 30.388 113.1 

1840 97.574 221.0 

1850 209,897 115. 1 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 416,279 Native 792,175 White 591.531 Chinese 133 

Female. ..386,246 Foreign 10,350 Black 210,666 Indian 195 

Dwellings 149.377 Persons toadwelling 5.37 

Families 154,272 " " family 5.20 

Voters — Males over 21 182,977 Natural militia, 18-44 159,606 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Arkansas 8,038 

Ashley 10,156 

Baxter 6,004 

Benton 20,328 

Boone 12,146 

Bradley 6,285 

Calhoun 5,^71 

Carroll i3,337 

Chicot 10,117 

Clark 15.771 

Clay 7,213 

Columbia 14,090 

Conway 12,755 

Craighead 7,037 

Crawford 14,740 

Crittenden 9.415 

Cross 5,050 

Dallas 6,505 

Desha 8 973 

Dorsey 8,370 

Drew 12,231 

Faulkner 12,786 

Franklin 14,951 

Fulton 6,720 

Garland 9.023 

Grant 6,185 

Greene 7,480 

Hempstead 19,015 

Hot Spring 7,775 

Howard 9,917 

Independence i8,,86 

Izard 10,857 

Jackson 10,877 

Jefiferson 22,386 

Johnson 11,565 

La Fayette 5,730 

Lawrence 8,782 



1870. 


i860. 


8,268 


8,844 


8,042 


8,59a 


13.831 


9.306 


7,032 




8,646 


8,388 


3,853 


4,i"3 


5,780 


9.383 


7.214 


9.234 


11,953 


9.735 


11,397 


12,4^9 


8,, 12 


6,697 


4.577 


3,c66 


8,957 


7,850 


3.831 


4,920 


3,915 




5.707 


8,283 


0,125 


6.459 



9,960 9,078 



9,627 
4,843 

3.943 

7,573 
13,768 
5.877 



14.566 
6,806 
7,268 

15,733 
9.152 
9.139 
5,981 



7,298 
4.024 



5.843 
13,989 
5,635 

14,307 
7.215 
10,493 
14,971 
7,612 
8,464 
9,372 



Counties. 1880. 

Lee 13,288 

Lincoln 9,255 

Little River 6,404 

Logan 14,885 

Lonoke 12,146 

Madison ii,45S 

Marion 7,907 

Miller 9 919 

Mississippi 7,332 

Monroe 9,574 

Montgomery 5,729 

Nevada 12,959 

Newton 6,120 

Ouachita 11,758 

Perry 3,872 

Phillips 21,262 

Pike 6,345 

Poinsett 2,192 

Polk .• 5,857 

Pope 14,322 

Prairie 8,4:55 

Pulaski 32,616 

Randolph 11,724 

S.'int Francis 8,389 

Saline 8,953 

Scott 9,174 

Searcy 7.278 

Sebastian 19,560 

Sevier 6,192 

Sharp 9,047 

Stone 5,089 

Union 13,419 

Van Buren 9,565 

Washington 23,844 

White '7 794 

Woodruff. 8,646 

Yell 13,852 



1870. 



••••■•• 


3"."236 


8,231 


7,740 


3,9:9 


6,192 


3.633 


3.895 


8,3^6 


5,657 


2,984 


3,633 


4.374 


3,393 


12.975 


12,936 


2,685 


2,465 


15.372 


14,877 


3,788 


4.025 


1,720 


3,621 


3.37^ 


4,262 


8,386 


7,883 


5,604 


8,854 


32,066 


11,699 


7.466 


6,261 


6,714 


8,672 


3,9" 


6,640 


7,483 


5,145 


5,614 


5,271 


12,940 


9,238 


4,492 
5,400 


10,516 




10,571 


12,288 


5,107 


5,357 


17,266 


14,673 


10,347 


8,316 


6,891 
8,048 




6,333 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 5 ; Instructors, 35 ; Students, 709. 

Public schools, 2,768 ; value of school property, ;^273,302 ; 
teachers, 2,823; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^388,6i6; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^ 5 00,97 8 ; expended for same (1882), 
^503,857; school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 
289,617; pupils enrolled (1882), 117,696; average attendance 
(1882), 56,291 ; average length of school session in 1880, 91 
days. 



RULING BY STATES. 269 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 153,229, or 28.8 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Persons over ten years who cannot write : native white, 97,- 
990; foreign white, 552; colored, Chinese and Indians, 103,473; 
202,015, or 38 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers; 6; others, 114; total, 120; circulation, 92,621. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 216,655 ; 
in professional and personal services, 23,466; in trade and trans- 
portation, 9,233; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 11,- 

338^ 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 94,433 ; total acres, 
12,061,547; improved acres, 3,595,603; average size of farms, 
128 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^74,249,655 ; value of 
implements, ;^4,637,497 ; total value of all farm products sold, 

consumed or on hand, ;^43,796,26i. 

•< 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley i>952 bush. 

Buckwheat 548 " 

Butter 7,790,01 3 lbs. 

Cheese 26,301 " 

Cotton 608,256 bales. 

Hay 23,295 tons. 

Indian Corn 24,156,417 bush. 

Milk 316,858 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 2,219,822 bush. 

Orchard products ^867,426 

Potatoes, Irish... ., 402,027 bush. 

" sweet 881,260 " 

Rye 22,387 " 

Tobacco 970,220 ]l)s. 

Wheat 1,269,715 bush. 

Wool 557,368 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses .• 146,333 

Mules and asses 87,082 

Working oxen 25,444 

Milch cows 249,407 

Total value of all live-stock on farms June i, 1880 $20,472,425 



Number. 

Other cattle 433,392 

Sheep 246,757 

Swine 1,565,098 



MANUFACTURES,— dumber of establishments, 1,202 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^2,953,i3o; hands employed, 4,557; wages paid, 
^^925.358 ; value of material, ;^4,392,o8o; value of products, 
^6,756,159. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and grist-mill products. .$2,249,289 Oil and cotton-seed cake 590,000 

Lumber sawed 1,793,848 

Total steam and water-power in use, 15,733 horse-power. 



270 ' BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

J/ZATTV^a— Quantity : 

Value. 
Coal, bituminous 14,778 tons ^33,535 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^Wvodids in 1883, 1,020 
miles of line; miles operated, 558; cost, ;^40,307,404; total in- 
vestment,- ;^40,046,3 1 8. Steam craft, 37 ; tonnage, 5,047; value, 
;^227,40o; barges and flats, 78; value, ;^6,6oo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate, 
Oct I, 1883, ;^75,ooo,ooo; personal property, ;^48, 000,000 ; State 
taxation (1883), 70 cents on ;^ioo, ;^7 50,000; county taxation 
(1880), ^734,974; township and municipal taxation, $7,88,8^8; 
State debt (1883), bonded, ^2,454,000 ; floating, ;^2,689,ooo; total, 
^5,143,000; amount in sinking fund, ;^i,oo6,668; local and 
county indebtedness, ;^3, 899,047. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Little Rock. Governor elected 
every two years. Salary, ^3,500. The other officers, all elected 
for two years, are the Secretary of State, salary, ;^ 1,800; At- 
torney-General, ;^i,500; Treasurer, ;^2,250; Superintendent 
Public Instruction, ;^i,6oo; Auditor, ;^2,250 ; Land Commis- 
sioner, ^1,800. 

Legislature composed of 31 Senators and 94 RepresentativeSc 
Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for two years. 
Salary $6 a day. Legislature meets biennially on second Mon- 
day in January. Sessions limited to 60 days. State election 
held every two years on first Monday in September. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice- and two Associate 
Justices, elected for eight years. Salary of each, ;^3,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 5 ; Presidential electors, 7. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Greenback. Maj. 

1872 President 37,927 4i,073 3,146 R. 

1874 Governor 76,871 76,8710. 

1876 Governor 71,298 37,306 33,992 D. 

1876 President 58,083 38,699 19,4140. 

1878 Governor 88,792 88,7920. 

1880 President 60,489 41,661 18,828 D. 

1880 Governor 84,185 31,424 52,7610. 

1882 Governor 87,675 49,352 10,142 28,181 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



271 




CALIFORNIA. 



NAME. — The name California originated in the imagination 
of one Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, a Spaniard, and author of 
the romance called ^'^ Esplandian," published about 15 lO. In 
this work " California" is the name of an imaginary island " on 
the right hand of the Indies, very near to the Terrestrial Para- 
dise, abounding in great treasures of gold." Cortes applied the 
word to the peninsula of Lower California in 1535. The ro- 
mancer evidently conjured up the word from the Arabic Khalafa^ 
our word caliph, successor. Popular name, " The Golden 
State." 

ADMISSION. — Act of admission and actual admission, 
September 9, 1850. 

AREA. — Square miles, 155,980; acres, 99,827,200; persons 
to a square mile, 5.54. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1850 92,597 

i860 379.994 



Per cent, of 
increase. 



Census. Pop. 

1870 560,247 

1880 864,694 



Males 518,176 

Females , , 346,5 1 8 Foreign. . . 292,874 

Dwellings 161,037 

Families 177,508 

Voters — Males over 21 329,392 



3103 
1880 by Classes. 
Native 571,820 White 767,181 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
47-4 
54-3 



Chinese 75,2 18 

Black 6,018 Indians 16,277 

Persons to a dwelling 5.37 

" " family 4.87 

Natural militia, 18-44 .257,229 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Alameda 62,976 

Alpine 539 

Amador "1384 

Butte 18,721 

Calaveras 9,094 

Colusa 13. "8 

Contra Costa 12,525 



1870. . 

24,237 

685 

9.582 

",403 
8,895 
6,165 
8,461 



i860. 
8,927 



10,930 
12,106 
16,299 
2,274 
5,328 



Counties. 1880. 

Del Norte 2,584 

El Dorado 10,683 

Fresno 9,478 

Humboldt 15.512 

Inyo 2,928 

Kern 5,601 

Klamath 



1870. 


i860. 


2,022 


1,993 


10,309 


20,562 


6.S36 


4,605 


6,140 


2,694 


1,956 




2,925 





1.686 


1,803 



272 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties foi' three Censuses — Continued. 



".333 
3,334 
6,243 
3,967 
1,141 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i86o. 

Lake 6, 96 2,969 

Lassen 3,34o 1,327 

Los Angeles 33»38i 15,309 

M.irin 11,324 6,953 

Mariposa 4.339 4,572 

Mendocino 12,800 7,545 

Mjrced 5,656 2,807 

MoJoc 4.399 

Mono 7,499 430 

Monterey 11,302 9.876 

Napa 13,235 7,163 

Nevada 20,823 19,134 

Placer 14,232 ii,357 

Plumas 6,180 4,489 

Sacramento 34. 39^ 26,830 

San Benito 5,584 

San B rnardino 7,786 3,988 5,551 

San Diego 8,618 4,951 4,324 

San Francisco 23^959 149,473 56,802 

Sanjoaquin 24,349 21,050 9,435 



4,739 
5,:2i 
16,446 
13,27^ 
4.363 
24,142 



Counties. 1880. 

San Luis Obispo 9.142 

San Mateo 8,669 

Santa Barb .ra 9,513 

Sania Clara 35,o39 

Santa Cruz 12,802 

Shasta : 9,492 

Sierra 0,623 

Siskiyou ,.. 8,610 

Solano 18,475 

Sonoma 23,926 

Sranislaus 8,751 

Sutter 5,159 

Tehama 9,3°! 



Trinity. 

Tulare 

Tuolumne , 
Ventura .... 

Yolo 

Yuba 



4,999 

Il,2Jl 
7,848 

5,073 
11,772 
11,284 



1870. 
4,772 
6,635 
7.784 
26,246 

8,743 
4,173 
5,619 
6.848 
16.871 
19,819 
6.499 
5,033 
3,587 
3,213 
4,533 
8,150 

9,^99 
10,851 



i860. 
1,782 
3,214 
3,543 

11,912 
4,944 
4,360 

",387 
7,629 
7,169 

11,867 
2.245 
3.390 
4.044 
5,125 
4.638 

16,229 



4.716 
13,668 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, ii; instructors, i8o; students, 

2,193. 

Public schools, 3,446; value of school property, $6,gi\g,g^2>\ 
teachers, 3,556; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^2,4o6,78i ; receipts 
for school purposes, ^3,525,527; expended for same (1882), 
;^3, 122,666; school age, 5 to 17 years; school population (1882), 
216,380; pupils enrolled (1882), 168,024; average attendance 
(1882), 107,177; average length of school session in 1882, 155.4 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 48,583, being 7.1 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years. Persons over ten years who 
cannot write: native white, 7,660; foreign white, 18,430; col- 
ored, Chinese and Indians, 27,340; total, 53,430, being y.2> per 
cent, of all persons over ten years. 

Daily papers, 59; others, 305 ; total, 364. Circulation, 671,- 
811. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 79,396; 
in professional and personal services, 121,435 ; in trade and 
transportation, 57,392 ; in mining, mechanics and manufacturing, 
11^,282. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 35,934; total acres in 
farms, 16,593,742; improved acres, 10,669,698; average size of 
farms, 462 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^262 ,05 1,282 ; 
value of implements, ;^8,447,744 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ^^59,72 1,425. 



RULING BY STATES. 273 



Principal Products 

Quantity. 

Barley 12,463,561 bush. 

Buckwheat 22,307 " 

Butter 14,084,405 lbs. 

Cheese 2,566,618 " 

Hay 1,135,180 tons. 

Hops 1,444,077 lbs. 

Indian Corn 1 ,993,325 bush. 

Milk 12,353.178 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 1,341,271 bush. 

Orchard products ^2,017,314 

Potatoes, Irish 4>550j565 bush. 

sweet 86,284 " 

Rye i8i,68i " 

Tobacco 73,317 lbs. 

Wheat 29,017,707 bush. 

Wool .16,798,036 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 451,941 

Sheep 4,152,349 

Swine 603,550 



Number. 

Horses 237,710 

Mules and asses 28,343 

Working oxen 2,288 

Milch cows 210,078 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 $35,500,417 

MANUFACTURES.— Humher of establishments, 5,885 ; cap- 
ital invested, $61,24:^,^84; hands employed, 43,693; wages 
paid, ;^2 1,065,905 ; value of material, ^72,607,709; value of 
products, ;^ II 6,2 1 8,973. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Boots and shoes $3,649,551 Lumber, sawed $4,428,950 



Clothing (men's) 3,992,209 

Flour and mill products 12,701,477 

Machinery 4,797,232 

Leather, tanned and curried. . 5,740,573 
Malt liquors 3,862,431 



Printing and publishing 3,148,978 

Slaughtering and packing. .. . 7,953,914 

Tobacco and Cigars 3,947,353 

Sugar-refining 5,932,000 



Total steam and water power in use, 32,921 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qusintity: 

Value. 

Gold $17,150,941 

Silver 1,150,887 

Coal, bituminous 236,950 tons. 663,013 

Copper, ingots 720,000 lbs. 

Minor minerals 2,597 tons. 19,948 

Total precious $18,301,828 Total non-precious $682,961 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^^.\\ro2.ds in 1883, 3,187 
miles of line; miles operated, 3,745; cost, ;^268 ,485, 344; total 
investment, ;^289,6i 8,204. Total number of steam craft, 187 ; ton- 
^ag^> 59,030; value, ;^3, 792,800. Number of sail craft, 652; 
tonnage, 117,970; value, ^2,949,250. Barges and flats, 2,8] 
value, $110,800. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION.-^AssessQd value of real estate 
(1882), ;^446,2I9,940; personal property, ^161,152,822. State 
18 



274 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

taxation (1882), 59.6 cents on ;^ioo, ;5$3,934,i84; county taxa- 
tion, ;^4,05 9,471 ; township and municipal taxation, ;^5, 35 3, 357; 
State debt (1882), all funded, ;^6o6,500; local and county indebt- 
edness, ;^ 13,449,074. 

GOVERNMENT.— Csipita}, Sacramento. Governor elected 
every four years. Salary, ;^6,ooo. The other State officers, all 
elected for four years, are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^I2 per 
day ; Secretary of State, ;^3,CXXD ; Treasurer, ^3,000 ; Comptroller, 
|t3,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruction, ;^3,ooo; Attorney- 
General, ;^3,ooo; Surveyor-General, ;^3,ooo; State Librarian, 
;^3,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 40 Senators and 80 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are chosen for four years and Representa- 
tives for two years. Salary of each, ;^8 a day, $2$ extra, and 10 
cents mileage. Sessions held biennially, commencing on first 
Monday after Jan. i. Limit of session, 60 days. 

The date of State election is Tuesday after first Monday in 
November ; also of Presidential and Congressional election. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and six associates, 
elected for twelve years. Salary of each, ^6,000. 

Representatives in Congress, 6; Presidential Electors, 8. 

POL/TICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Ind.& others. *Maj. 

1872 President 40,718 54,020 1,068 13,302 R. 

1873 Sup. Court 19,247 13,841 24,554 5»207L 

1875 Governor 61,509 31,322 29,752 30,1870. 

1876 President 76,464 79,269 44 2,805 R. 

1879 Governor 47,647 67,965 44,482 20,318 R. 

1880 President 80,417 80,273 144 D. 

1882 Governor 90,695 67,173 6,792 16,730 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



275 




COLORADO. 



NAME. — From the Rio Colorado, the ruddy, red or colored 
river. Popular name, " The Centennial State." 

ADMISSION.— Oxgd^mz^^ as a Territory, Feb. 28, 1861 ; 
act of admission, March 3, 1875 ; admission took effect August 
I, 1876. 

AREA. — Square miles, 103,645; acres, 66,332,800; persons 
to square mile, 1.87. 

POPULATION 2ind rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

i860 34,277 

1870 39,864 

1880 194,327 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 129,131 Native 154,537 

Female.. . 65,196 Foreign. , .. 39,790 

Dwellings 39,oi8 

Families 41,260 

Voters— Males over 21 93,6o8 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

16.2 
387.4 



White. 
Black . 



191,126 
2,435 



Chinese 612 

Indian 154 



Persons to a dwelling 4.98 

" " family 4.71 

Natural militia, 18-44 86,004 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Arapahoe 38,644 

Bent 1,654 

Boulder 9,723 

Chaffee 6,512 

Clear Creek 7,823 

Conejos 5,605 

Costilla 2,879 

Custer 8,080 

Douglas 2,486 

Elbert 1,708 

El Paso 7,949 

Fremont 4,735 

Gilpin 6,489 

Grand 417 

Greenwood 

Gunnison 8,235 



1870. i860. 

6,829 

592 

1,939 


1,596 

2,504 

1,779 


1,388 


987 

1,064 

5,490 


510 



Counties. 1880. 

Hinsdale 1,487 

Huerfano 4,124 

Jefferson 6,804 

Lake 23,563 

La Plata i,no 

Larimer 4,892 

Las Animas 8,903 

Ouray 2,669 

Park 3,970 

Pueblo 7,617 

Rio Grande i,944 

Routt 140 

Saguache i,973 

San Juan 1,087 

Summitt / 5,459 

Weld ; 5,646 



1870. 

2,250 

2,390 
522 

"838 
4,276 

447 
2,265 



258 
1,636 



i860. 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 3; instructors, 25; students, 380. 
Public schools, 514; value of school property, ;^7 10,503; 
teachers, 559; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^300,i28; receipts for 



276 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



school purposes, $$26,126; expended for same (1882), $626,- 
965; school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 49,208; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 31,738; average attendance (1882), 18,- 
488; average length of school session in 1882, 100 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 9,321, being 5.9 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 8,373; foreign white, 1,533; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 568; total, 10,474, being 6.6 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 20; others, 70; total, 90. Circulation, 101,329. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 13,539; 
in professional and personal service, 24,813 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 15,491 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
47,408. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 4,506; total acres in 
farms, 1,165,373; improved acres, 616,169; average size of 
farms, 259 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^25, 109,223 ; 
value of implements, ;^9io,o85 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^5,035,228. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 107, 116 bush. 

Buckwheat no •* 

Butter 860,379 lbs. 

Cheese 10,867 " 

Hay 85,062 tons. 

Indian Corn 455,968 bush. 

Milk 506,706 gal. 



Quantity. 

Oats 640,900 bush. 

Orchard products $3,246 

Potatoes, Irish 383,123 bush. 

Rye 19,465 " 

Wheat 1,425,014 " 

Wool 3,i97»39i lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 42,257 

Mules and asses 2,581 

Working oxen 2,080 

Milch cows 28,770 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $8,703,342 



Number. 

Other cattle 315,989 

Sheep 746,443 

Swine 7,^56 



MANUFACTURES.— ^wmhQY of establishments, 599; capi- 
tal invested, ;^4,3 11,714; hands employed, 5,074; wages paid, 
;^2,3 14,427; value of material, ;^8,8o6,762; value of products, 
;^ 1 4,260, 1 59. 

The principal products were ; 



RULING BY STATES. 277 



Flour and mill products $2,SS4^644 

Machinery 1,037,522 

Slaughtering and packing 1,082,690 



Lumber planed $1,276,000 

" sawed 1,051,295 



Total steam and water-power in use, 5,802 horse-power. 
MINING.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $2,699,898 

Silver 16,549,274 

Coal, bituminous 462,747 tons 1,041,350 

Copper ingots .^ i j57^ l^s. 

Total precious metals..$i9,249,i72. Non-precious, . $1,041,350 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^3\\rod.ds in 1883, 2,157 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,799; cost, ;^87,58i,073 ; total 
investment, ;^88,398,364. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal estate (1882), ;^73,776,i09; State taxation (1882) at 40 
cents on ;^ioo, ;^295,I04; county, taxation, ^1,209,808; town- 
ship and municipal taxation, ^569,841 ; State debt, Dec. i, 1882, 
^233,688, not funded. The Constitution prohibits a debt in ad- 
vance of appropriations. County and municipal indebtedness, 
^,381,482. 

GO VERNMENT. — Capital, Denver. Governor elected every 
two years. Salary, ;^5,ooo. The other State officers, all elected 
for two years, are Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^ 1,000; Secretary 
of State, ;^3,ooo; Treasurer, ^3,000; Auditor, ^2,500; Attorney- 
General, ;^2,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruction, ;^3,ooo; 
Adjutant-General, ;^500; State Librarian. 

The Legislature is composed of 26 Senators and 49 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator $^ per day and 15 cents 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Wednesday in 
January. Session limited to 40 days. 

State, . Congressional and Presidential elections on Tuesday 
after the first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two As- 
sociates, elected for nine years. Salary of each, ;^5,ooo. 

Representative in Congress, i ; Presidential electors, 3. 



278 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



POLITICS for twelve years 

Rep 

1872 Congress 7,696 

1874 Congress 9,333 

1876 Congress 13,308 

1876 Governor 14,154 

1878 Governor 14,396 

1878 Congress.. 14,294 

1880 President 27,450 

1882 Governor 27,552 



Dem. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


3 6,260 





1,336 R 


\ 7.170 




2,163 R 


5 12,310 





998 R 


i 13.316 





838 R 


> 11.573 


2,755 


2,823 R. 


1- 12,003 


2,329 


2,291 R 


> 24,647 


1.435 


2,803 R. 


29,897 


937 


2,345 D- 



CONNECTICUT. 




NAME. — From the Indian Quinni-tuk-Mty the country " upon 
the long river," or " the long river " itself. Popular name, " The 
Free Stsone State," and jocularly " The Nutmeg State." 

^Z>J//55/(9iV:— Ratified the Constitution, Jan. 9, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 4,845 ; acres, 3,100,800; persons to a 
square mile, 128.52. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 237,946 

1800 251,002 

1810 261,942 

1820 275,148 

1830 297,675 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

5-4 
4.3 
5.0 
8.1 



Census. Pop. 

1840 309.978 

1850 370,792 

i860 460,147 

1870 537,454 

1880 622,700 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
4.1 
19.6 
24.0 
16.8 
15.8 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 305,782 Native 492,708 

Female. ..316,918 Foreign 129,992 

Dwellings 108,458 

Families 136,885 

Voters — Males over 21 177,291 



While 610,769 Chinese 129 

Black 1 1,547 Indians 255 

Persons to a dwelling 5.74 

" " family .•..4-55 

Natural militia, 18-44 127,590 



Counties. 1880. 

Fairfield 112,042 

Hartford 125,382 

Litchfield 52,044 

Middlesex 35,589 



RULING BY STATES. 
By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. i88o. 

New Haven 156,523 

New London 73,152 

Tolland 24,112 

Windham 43,856 



279 



1870. 


i860. 


95,276 


77,746 


09,007 


89,962 


48,727 


47.318 


36,099 


30,859 



1870. 


i860. 


[21,257 


97,345 


66,570 


61,731 


22,000 


21,177 


38.518 


34.729 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 3; instructors, 74; students, 939. 

Public schools, 2,601 ; value of school property, ;^3,454,275 ; 
teachers, 2,719; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^i,056,268; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^ 1,441, 25 5 ; expended for same (1882), $\- 
553,065; school age, 4-16; school population (1882), 146,188; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 121,185; average attendance (1882), 
77,041 ; average length of school session in 1882, 179.66 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read 20,986, being 4.2 per 
cent, of all over ten years of age. Persons over ten years who 
cannot write: native white, 3,728 ;/oreign white, 23,035 ; colored, 
Chinese and Indians, 1,661 ; total, 28,424, being 5.7 per cent, of 
all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 17; others, 123; total, 140. Circulation, 233,- 
240. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 44,026 ; 
in professional and personal service, 51,296; in trade and trans- 
portation, 29,920; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
116,091. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 30,598; total acres in 
farms, 2,453,541; improved acres, 1,642,188; average size of 
farms, 80 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 12 1, 063,910; 
value of implements, ;^3, 162,628 ; total value of all farm products 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 18,010,075. 



Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 12,286 bush. 

Buckwheat 1 37,563 ** 

Butter 8,198,995 lbs. 

Cheese 826,195 " 

Hay 557,860 tons. 

Indian Corn 1,880,421 bush. 

Milk 12,289,893 galls. 

Oats. 1,009,706 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products $427,506 

Potatoes, Irish 2,584,262 bush. 

" sweet 918 " 

Rye 370,733 " 

Tobacco 14,044,652 lbs. 

Wheat 38,472 bush. 

Wool 230,133 lbs. 



280 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 92,149 

Sheep 59.431 

Swine 63,699 



Number. 

Horses 44,940 

Mules and asses 539 

Working oxen 28,418 

Milch cows 116,319 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 1^10,959,296 

MANUFACTURES.— ^Mvcih^x of establishments, 4,488 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^ 1 20,480,275 ; hands employed, 112,915; wages 
paid, ;^43,50i,5i8; value of material, ;^i02,i83,34i ; value of pro- 
ducts, ;^ 1 85, 697,2 II. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Boots and shoes ' ;$2, 21 1,385 

rubber 4,175.997 

Brass and copper rolled 10,985,471 

Carpets 2,500,559 

Carriages and wagons , . . . 2,605,591 

Clocks 3,016,717 

Clothing, men's 2,210,159 

Cotton goods 17,050,126 

Corsets 3,322,359 

' Cutlery 2,704,708 

Fire-arms 2,470,398 

Flour and mill products. . . . 2,964,134 



Machinery ^6,339,599 

Hardware 10,374,293 

Hats and caps 4,407,993 

Hosiery 2,432,271 

Mixed Textiles 5,9^9,505 

Paper 4,337,55o 

Plated and Britannia ware . . 6,080,076 

Sewing machines 2,969,741 

Silk and silk goods 5,881,000 

Slaughtering and packing. .. 4,669,540 

Woollen goods 16,892,284 



Total steam and vi^ater-power in use, 118,232 horse-power. 
J//iV77V^6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 
Iron ore 35,oi8 tons $147,799 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^?ii\vo3.ds in 1883, 973 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,029; ^^^^^ $4^y47^,S72 ', total 
investment, ;^47,633,32i. Steam craft, 116; tonnage, 29,323; 
value, ;^ 1, 7 5 2, 200. Sail craft, 641; tonnage, 44,299; value, 
;$i,i07,475. Canal boats, 4; barges and flats, y6. 83 miles of 
abandoned canal, costing ;^827,ooo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^228,487,700 ; of personal property, ;^95,90i,223. State 
taxation (1883), 12.5 cents on ;^ioo, ;^ 1,630,5 36; county taxa- 
tion, ;^ 145, 707; township and municipal taxation, ;^4,730,907. 
State debt, Jan. i, 1883, all funded, ^4,272,100; county and 
town indebtedness, ;^ 17,034,061. 

GOVERNMENT— Csipital, Hartford. Governor elected every 
two years. Salary, ;^2,ooo. The other State officers, all selected 
for two years, except Insurance Commissioner, are : Lieutenant- 



RULING BY STATES. 



281 



Governor, salary, ;^500; Secretary of State, ;^ 1,500; Treasurer, 
;^i,500; Comptroller, ;^i,500; Secretary State Board Education, 
;^3,ooo; Adjutant-General, ^^ 1,200; Insurance Commission (three 
years), ;^3,500; Secretary Board Agriculture, ;^700 ; State Libra- 
rian, ;^i,8oo; three Railroad Commissioners, each, ;^3,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 24 Senators and 249 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for two years and Repre- 
sentatives for one year. Salary, ;^300 a year and mileage. Ses- 
sions of Legislature annual, beginning on Wednesday after first 
Monday in January. No limit to session. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections on Tuesday 
after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salary ;^4,500, 
and four associates, salary of each ;^4,ooo. All elected for eight 
\ years. 

Representatives in Congress, 4; Presidential electors, 6. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. 

1872 President 45,894 

1873 Governor 4S,059 

^1874 Governor 46,755 

1875 Governor 53,752 

1876 President 61,934 

1878 Governor 46,385 

1880 President 64,417 

1882 Governor 59»oi4 



Rep. 


Temp. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


50,318 


206 


.... 


4,218 R. 


39,245 


2,541 




3,273 D. 


39,973 


4,960 




1,809 D. 


44,272 


2,942 


.... 


6,538 D. 


59,034 


378 




2,900 D. 


48,867 


1,079 


8,314 


2,482 R. 


67,073 


412 


868 


2,656 R. 


54,853 


1,034 


697 

V 


4,161 D. 



DAKOTA TERRITORY. 



NAME. — Dakota is Indian for " leagued " or " allied." It was 
applied to the confederated Sioux tribes. 

ORGANIZATION.— Kz^ of organization, March 2, 1861. 

AREA. — Square miles, 147,700; acres, 94,528,000; persons 
to a square mile, 0.92. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 

Census. Pop. Per cent of 

i860 41837 increase. 

1870 14,181 193.1 

1880 135,177 853.2 



282 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



1880 by Classes. 



Male. . ..82,296 Native 83,382 

Female. .52,881 Foreign . ..51,795 

Dwellings 29,324 

Families 31,202 

Voters — Males over 21 51,603 



White 133,147 Chinese 238 

Black.... 401 Indians. .. .1,391 

Persons to a dwelling 4.61 

" " family 4.33 

Natural militia, 18-44 45,788 



By Coiinties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Aurora 69 

Barnes ijSSs 

Beadle 1,290 

Billings i»323 

Bonhomme 5,468 608 

Boreman 534 

Bottineau 

Brookings 4,965 163 

Brown 353 

Brule 238 

Buffalo 63 246 

Burleigh 3.246 

Campbell 50 

Cass 8,998 

Cavileer 

Charles Mix 407 152 

Cheyenne 

Clark 114 

Clay 5,001 2,621 

Coddington 2,156 

Custer 995 

Davison 1,256 

SY 97 

Delano 

DeSmet 

Deuel 2,302 37 

Douglas 6 

Edmunds 

Emmons 38 

Faulk 4 

Forsyth 

Foster 37 

Gingras 

Grand Forks 6,248 

Grant 3,010 

Gregory 

Hamlin 693 

Hand 153 

Hanson 1,301 

Howard 12 

Hughes 268 

Hutchinson 5,573 37 

Hyde 

Jayne 5 

Kidder 89 

Kingsbury 1,102 

Lake 2,657 

La Moure 20 

Lawrence 13,248 

Lincoln 5,896 712 



1880. 1870. 



355 



Counties. 

Logan , 

Lugenbeel 

Lyman 124 

McCook ....1,283 

McHenry 

McPherson 

Mandan «... 

Mercer 

Meyer 115 

Miner 363 

Minnehaha 8,251 

Moody 3,915 

Morton 200 

Mountraille 13 

Pembina 4,862 1,213 

Pennington 2,244 

Potter 

Pratt 

Presho 

Ramsey 281 

Ransom 537 

Renville 

Richland 3,597 

Rolette 

Rusk 46 

Shannon 113 

Sheridan 

Spink 477 

Stanley 793 

Stark 

Stevens 247 

Stutsman 1,007 

Sully 296 

Todd 203 

Traill 4,123 

Tripp 

Turner 5,320 

Union 6,813 

Wallette 432 

Walworth 46 

White River 

Williams 14 

Yankton 8,390 2,097 

Zieback 

Sisseton and Wahpeton In- 
dian Reservation 73 

Fort Sisseton 134 

Unorganized portion of the 
Territory 2,091 



i860. 



337 



3,507 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, 508; value of school prop- 
erty, ;^2 14,760; teachers, 520 ; teachers' salaries, ;^8l,3il ; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^i37,8i7; expended for same, ;^l83,257; 
school age, 5-21; school population (1881), 33,815; pupils 
enrolled (1881), 25,451 ; average attendance, 8,530. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 3,094, being 3.1 per 



RULING BY STATES. 283 

cent, of all over ten years of age. Persons over ten years who 
cannot write: native white, 933 ; foreign white, 3,224; colored, 
Chinese and Indians, 664; total, 4,821, being 4.8 per cent, of all 
over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 9; others, 57; total, 66. Circulation, 37,843. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 28,508; 
in professional and personal service, 14,016; in trade and trans- 
portation, 6,219; ^^ manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
9,101. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 17,435 ; total acres in 
farms, 3,800,656; improved acres, 1,150,413; average size of 
farms, 218 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^22,401,084; 
value of implements, ;^2, 390,091 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^5, 648,8 14. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 277,424 bush. 

Buckwheat 2,521 " 

Butter 2,000,955 lt»s. 

Cheese 39>437 " 

Hay 308,036 tons. 

Indian Corn 2,000,864 bush. 

Milk 415,119 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 2,217,132 bush. 

Orchard products ^156 

Potatoes, Irish 664,086 bush. 

Rye 24,359 « 

Tobacco 1*897 yps. 

Wheat 2,830,289 bush. 

Wool 157,025 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 88,825 

Sheep 30,244 

Swine 63,394 



Number. 

Horses 41,670 

Mules and asses 2,703 

Working oxen 11,418 

Milch cows 40,572 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ;!56,463,274 

J/^i\^C/F^(rr£/i?^5.— Number of establishments, 251; capi- 
tal invested, ;^77i,428; hands employed, Z6Z\ wages paid, ;^339,- 
375 ; value of materials, ;^i, 523,761; value of products, ;^2,373,- 

970- ^ 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flouring and grist-mill products j^ 1, 040,958 

Sawed lumber 435,792 

Total steam and water-power in use, 2,224 horse-power. 



284 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

J///V/A^(9.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $3,3'=>5M3 

Silver 70,813 

Total value of precious minerals ^3,376,656 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— R2ii\ro2ids in 1883, 151 
miles of line; miles operated, none; cost, ;^5, 800,000; total in- 
vestment, ;^ 5, 8 5 0,000. Steam craft, 19; tonnage, 7,592 ; value, 
;^328,ooo. Barges, 12; tonnage, 1,220; value, ;^9,5oo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal estate in 1883, ;^69,i54,9io; Territorial taxation, 1883, 
36 cents on ;^ioo, ^195,346; county taxation, ;^296,692 ; city 
and town taxation, $yg,76$ ; Territorial debt, 1883, all funded, 
;^309,500 ; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^998,86o. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Bismarck. Governor appointed 
for four years by President by and with advice and consent of 
Senate. Salary, ;^2,6oo. The other Territorial officers are Sec- 
retary of Territory, appointed for four years, salary, ;^ 1,800; 
Treasurer, elected for two years, ;^2,ooo; Auditor, two years, 
;^i,ooo; Superintendent of Public Instruction, two years, ;^i,500. 

I'he Legislature is composed of 12 Senators and 24 Repre- 
sentatives, all chosen for two years. Salary, $4 per day and 20 
cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on second Tuesday 
in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

Territorial and Delegate elections held on Tuesday after first 
Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and three As- 
sociates, appointed by the President and Senate for four years. 
Salary, ;^3,ooo. 

POLITICS.— Vote for Delegate : 

Rep. Dem. Maj. 

1880 18,796 9,340 9,456 R. 

1882 38,151 9,034 29,117 R. 



RULING BY STATES. 



285 




DELAWARE. 



NAME. — Named from the river and bay to which Lord de la 
Warr's, or Ware's, name was affixed, he having visited the bay 
as early as 1610, and died on his vessel at its mouth. Popular 
name, "The Blue Hen," or '* Diamond " State. 

ADMISSION,— ^-aSA^^A the Constitution, December 7, 1787, 
being the first State to ratify. 

AREA. — Square miles, 1,960; acres, 1,254,400; persons to a 
square mile, 74.80. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Per cent, of 



Census. Pop. 

1790 59,096 

1800 64,273 

1810 72,674 

1820 ... 72,749 

1830 76,748 



increase. 



8.7 
[3.0 
0.1 
54 



Census. Pop. 

1840 78,085 

1850 91,532 

i860 112,216 

1870 125,015 

1880 146,608 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

1-7 
17.2 
22.5 
11.4 
17.2 



Males 74,108 Native 137,140 

Females... 72,500 Foreign.... 9,468 

Dwellings 27,215 

Families 28,253 

Voters — Males over 21 38,298 



1880 by Classes. • 

White 1 20, 1 60 Chinese i 

Black 26,442 Indians 5 

Persons to a dwelling 5.39 

" " family 5.19 

Natural militia, 18-44. 30,361 



Counties. 1880. 

Kent 32,874 

New Castle 77,7i6 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



1870. 
29,804 
63.515 



i860. I Counties. 1880. 

27,804 Sussex 36,018 

54,797 I 



1870. 
31,696 



i860. 
29,615 



EDUCATION— CoW^gQ, i ; instructors, 8; students, 54. 

Public schools, 519; value of school property, ^440,778; 
teachers, 526; teachers' salaries, ;^ 138,8 19; receipts for school 
purposes, 1^177,65 3 ; expended for same, ^207,281 ; school age, 
6-21; school population (1881), 37,285; pupils enrolled 



286 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

( 1 88 1), 29,122 ; average attendance, 17,439; average length of 
school session in 1 88 1, for white schools only, 153 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 16,912, being 15.3 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 6,630 ; foreign 
white, 1,716; colored, Chinese and Indians, 11,068; total, 
19,414, being 17.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of 
age. 

Daily papers, 5 ; others, 21 ; total, 26. Circulation, 36,925. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 17,849; 
in professional and personal services, 17,616; in trade and trans- 
portation, 4,967 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
14,148. 

AGRICULTURE, — Number of farms, 8,749; total acres in 
farms, 1,090,245; improved acres, 746,958; average size of 
farms, 125 acres; value of farms and buildings, $'^6,'j2>g,6y2\ 
value of implements, ;^i, 504,567; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^6,320,345. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 523 bush. 

Buckwheat 5,857 *' 

Butter 1,876,275 lbs. 

Cheese 1,712 " 

Hay 49,632 tons. 

Indian Corn 3,894,264 bush. 

Milk 1,132,434 galls. 

Oats 378,508 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products 1846,692 

Potatoes, Irish 283,864 bush. 

sweet i95»937 " 

Rye 5,953 « 

Tobacco 1,278 lbs. 

Wheat 1,175,272 bush. 

Wool 97,946 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 



Number. 



Horses 2i,933 

Mules and asses 3,931 

Working oxen 5,8i8 

Milch cows 27,284 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 ^3,420,080 



Other cattle 20,450 

Sheep 21,967 

Swine 48,186 



MANUFACTURES.— ^wmhQY of establishments, 746; capi- 
tal invested, ;^ 15,65 5,822 ; hands employed, 12,658; wages paid, 
;g4,267,349; value of material, ;gi2,828,46i ; value of product, 
^20,514,438- 



RULING BY STATES. 287 

The principal manufactures are : 



Cars ^i, 18^688 

Cotton goods 1,057,257 

Flour and mill products 1,341,026 

Iron and steel. 2,347,177 



Iron pipe, wrought ^^2,000,000 

Leather 1,886,597 

Ships 2,162,503 

Woollen goods 665,253 



Total steam and water power in use, 15,428 horse-power. 
J///V7i\^6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Iron ore 2,726 tons ^6,553 

Minor minerals 14,510 " 163,310 

Total mineral products ^169,863 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^3.\\rod.ds in 1883, 204 
miles of line; miles operated, 189; co*st, ;^4,309,977 ; total in- 
vestment, ;^4,34i,2i5. Canals, 14 miles; cost, ;^3,730,230. 
Steam craft, 25; tonnage, 5,888; value, ;^302,300. Sail craft, 
159; tonnage, 12,127; value, ;^303,i75. Barges and flats, 16; 
value, ;^ 5 1,600. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Ddsiwsire does not impose a 
State tax on property,* and there is therefore no assessed value, 
but a total valuation of real and personal property was returned 
to the Census Bureau, equal to ;^59,95 1,643. State taxation 
(1883), ;^ii7,458; county, ;^248,275 ; city and township, ;^3 55,- 
982; State debt (1883), all bonded, ;^78i,75o; county, city and 
town indebtedness, ;^ 1, 465, 83 5. 

GOVERNMENT— Cdipital, Dover. Goverfior elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^2,ooo. The other State officers are : Sec- 
retary of State, four years, salary, ;^ 1,000; Treasurer, two years, 
;^i,450; Auditor, two years, ;^700; Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, one year; Attorney-General, five years, ;^2,ooo; 
State Librarian, two years. 

The Legislature is composed of 9 Senators and 21 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years and Representa- 
tives for two years. Their salary is ;^3 a day and mileage. 
Legislature holds biennial sessions, beginning on first Tuesday 
in January. No limit to the sessions. 

* Her State moneys are raise^ principally from licenses and from taxes on rail- 
roads and passengers. The former gave ^64,000 in 1882, and the latter ^40,428, 
out of a total of State receipts of ^141,238. The State also owns railroad securities 
to the value of ^1,168,790, and is therefore practically out of debt. 



288 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November.^ 

The Judiciary is appointed by the Governor for life or good 
behavior. It consists of a Chancellor and Chief Justice, who 
each receive $2,^06 a year, and three Associate Justices, who 
receive each ;^2,200 a year. 

Representative in Congress, i ; Presidential electors, 3. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Others. Maj. 

1872 President 10,205 11,115 4^7 423 R. 

1874 Governor 12,488 11,259 1,2290. 

1876 Congress .. 13,169 10,562 238 2,3390. 

1876 President 13,379 10,691 2,688 O. 

1878 Governor 10,730 2,835 7,8950. 

1878 Congress 10,576 2,966 7,610 O. 

1880 President 15,180 14,148 1,0320. 

1882 Governor 16,558 14,620 1,9380. 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 




NAME. — The Capitol District, or central place of Columbia ; 
Columbia being (formerly more than now) a poetical or rhetori- 
cal title for the United States, and even North America and the 
Continent — from Columbus. 

ORGANIZATION.— ]M\y 16, 1790, and March 3. 1791. Re- 
diiced to present size in 1 846. Not organized as a Territory, but 
governed by Congress and Commissions. 

AREA. — Square miles, 60 ; acres, 38,400 ; persons to a square 
mile, 2,960.4. 



RULING BY STATES. 289 



POPULATION 2A\A rate of increase 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1850 51,687 18.2 

i860 75,080 45.2 

1870 131,700 75.4 

1880 177,624 34.8 



Per cent of 

Census. Pop. increase. 

1800 14,093 

1810 24,023 70.4 

1820 33,039 37.5 

1830 39,834 20.5 

1840..^. . 43»7I2 9.7 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 83,578 Native 160,502 White 118,006 Chinese 4 

Female. . 94,046 Foreign.... 17,122 Black.... 59,596 Indians.... 5 

Dwellings 28,687 Persons to a dwelling! 6.19 

Families : 34,896 " " family.... 5.09 

Voters — Males over 21 45,873 Natural militia, 18-44 35»4" 

EDUCATION.— -Colleges, 5 ; instructors, 51 ; students, 473. 

Public schools, 415; value of school property, ;^ 1,206,35 5 ; 
teachers, 425; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^3I7,329; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^476,957 ; expended for same (1882), ^579,3 12 ; 
school age, 6-17; school population, 43,558; pupils enrolled 
(1881), 27,299; average attendance, 20,637 ; average length of 
school session in 1 88 1, 190 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 21,541, being 15.7 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 1,950; foreign white, 
2,038; colored, Chinese and Indians, 21,790; total, 25,778, being 
18.8 per cent, of all persons over ten years. 

Daily papers, 5 ; others, 39; total, 44. Circulation, 202,023. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 1,464; 
in professional and personal service, 39,975 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 9,848 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

15,337- 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 435 ; total acres in 
forms, 18,146; improved acres, 12,632; average size of farms, 
42 acres ; value of farms and buildings, ;^3,632,403 ; value of 
implements, ;^36,798 ; total value of all farm products sold, con- 
sumed or on haijd, ;^5 14,441. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Butter I 20,920 lbs. 

Hay 3»759 tons. 

Indian Corn 29,750 bush. 

Milk 496,789 galls. 

Orchard product^ Jji 2,074 

19 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 33,064 bush. 

" sweet 23,347 " 

Rye 3,704 " 

Tobacco 1,400 lbs. 

Wheat 6,402 bush. 



290 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 1,027 

Mules and asses 68 

Working oxen 4 



Number. 

Milch cows i>292 

Other cattle 271 

Swine Iji32 



Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $123,300 

MANUFACTURES.— ^Mxnh^x of establishments, 971 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^5,552,526; hands employed, 7,146; wages paid, 
;^3,924,6i2; value of material, ;^5, 365,400; value of products, 
;^ii,882,3i6|i 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products $1,172,375 | Printing and publishing $2,896,312 

Total steam and water power in use, 3,143 horse-power. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— T\i& railroads of the Dis- 
trict are those centering there. They are the property of cor- 
porations outside, and their mileage is counted in with the length 
operated by said corporations. Steam craft, 34 ; tonnage, 6,946 ; 
value, ;^595,ooo. Sail craft, 58; tonnage, 1,920; value, ;^48,ooo; 
canal boats, 33; barges and flats, 2'/\ tonnage of same, 3,675; 
value, ;^28,ooo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION.— Assessied valuation of real 
estate, ;$87,98o,356; of personal property, ;^ii,42i,43i ; total 
District taxation, ;^i,469,254; net debt of District, ;^22,675,459. 

GOVERNMENT. — The District is governed by a commission 
of three persons appointed by the President and Senate for three 
years. Two of them must be from civil life; salary, ;^5,ooo. 
The third must be an officer of the Engineer Corps of the army. 
He draws army pay. 

The judicial power of the District is vested in a Supreme 
Court, with a Chief Justice, salary, ;^4,500, and five Associates, 
salary, ;^4,ooo each. 



R¥LING BY STATES. 



291 




FLORIDA. 

NAME. — Pascua Florida is Spanish for Easter Sunday. The 
peninsula, or " Land of Flowers," discovered by Ponce de Leon 
on that day he called Florida. 

ADMISSION. — Organized as a Territory, March 30, 1822; 
act of admission, and actual admission, March 3, 1845. 

AREA. — Square miles, 54,240; acres, 34,713,600; persons to 
a square mile, 4.97. 

POPULATION 2ind rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1830 34,730 

1840 54,477 

1850 87,445 



Per cent, of 



56.8 
60.5 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

i860 140,424 60.5 

1870 187,748 337 

1880 269,493 43.5 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 136,444 Native 259,584 

Female. ..133,049 Foreign.... 9,909 

Dwellings 52,868 

Families 54,691 

Voters — Males over 21 61 ,699 



White 142,605 Chinese 18 

Black ... . ..126,690 Indians 180 

Persons to a dwelling. 5.10 

" " family 4-93 

Natural militia, 18-44 51*807 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Alachua 16,462 

Baker 2,303 

Bradford 6,112 

Brevard 1,478 

Calhoun 1,580 

Clay 2,838 

Columbia 9,589 

Dade... 257 

Duval 19,43^ 

Escambia 12,156 

Franklin 1,79^ 

Gadsden 12.169 

Hamilton 6,790 

Hernando 4,248 

Hillsborough 5,814 

Holmes 2,170 

Tackson ^4.372 

Jefferson 16,065 

Lafayette, 2,441 

J.»€on '. 19,662 



1870. 

17,328 


i860, 
8,232 


1,325 




3,671 




1,216 


246 


998 


1,446 


2,098 


i,9M 


7,335 


4,646 


8S 


83 


11,921 


5,074 


7,817 


5,768 


1,256 


1,904 


9,802 


9.396 


5,749 


4.154 


2,938 


1,200 


3,216 


2,981 


1,572 


1,386 


9,528 


ic,2og 


13,398 


9,876 


1,783 


2,068 


15,236 


12,343 



Counties. 1880. 

Levy 5,767 

Liberty 1,362 

Madison 14,798 

Manatee 3,544 

Marion 13,046 

Monroe 10,940 

Nassau 6,635 

New River 

Orange 6,618 

Polk 3,181 

Putnam 6,261 

Saint John's 4,535 

Santa Rosa 6,645 

Sumter 4,686 

Suwannee 7,i6i 

Taylor 2,279 

Volusia 3.294 

Wakulla 2,723 

Walton 4,201 

Washington 4.089 



1870. 

2,018 

1,050 

11,121 

1,931 
10,804 

5,657 
4,247 

2,195 
3,169 
3,821 
2,618 
3,312 
2,952 
3,556 
1,453 
1,723 
2,506 
3.041 
2,302 



i860. 
1,781 
1,457 
7,779 

854 
8,609 
2,913 
3.644 
3,820 

987 



2,712 

3,038 
5,480 
1,549 
2,303 
1,384 
1,158 

2,839 
3,037 
2,154 



292 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. * 

EDUCATION.— ?\M\Q, schools, 1,135; value of school 
property, 1^134,804; teachers, 1,151 ; teachers' salaries, fe9,i 77; 
receipts for school purposes, ;^ 129,907 ; expended for same, ;^II7,- 
724; school age, 4-21 years; school population, Z%f)yy \ 
pupils enrolled, 39,315 ; average attendance, 27,046. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 70,219, being 38 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write : native white, 19,024 ; foreign white, 
739; colored, Indians and Chinese, 60,420; total, 80,183, being 
43.4 per cent, of all persons over ten years. 

Daily papers, 3 ; others, 42 ; total, 45. Circulation, 27,607. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 58,731; 
in professional and personal service, 17,923; in trade and trans- 
portation, 6,446; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

3,436. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 23,438; total acres in 
farms, 3,297,324; improved acres, 947,640; average size of 
farms, 141 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^20,291,835; 
value of implements, ;^689,666 ; total value of all farm products 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^7 ,439,392. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 210 bush. 

Butter 353**56 lbs. 

Cheese 2,406 " 

Cotton 54,997 l^ales. 

Hay 149 tons. 

Indian Com 3,174,234 bush. 

Milk 40,967 galls. 

Oats 468,112 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products* j^758,295 

Potatoes, Irish 20,221 bush. 

" sweet 1,687,613 " 

Rice 1,294,677 lbs. 

Sugar & Mol., 1,273 hds.1,029,868 galls. 

Tobacco 21,182 lbs. 

Wheat 422 bush. 

Wool 162,810 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 
Number. Number. 



Horses 22,636 

Mules and asses 9,606 

Working oxen 16,141 

Miich cows 42,174 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^5,358,980 



Other cattle 409,o55 

Sheep 56,681 

Swine ; 287,051 



MANUFACTURES.— dumber of establishments,' 426; capi> 
tal invested, ^^3,210,680; hands employed, 5,504; wages paid, 

* Includes $690,553 worth of oranges; and lemons. • 



RULING BY STATES. 293 

111,270,875; value of material, ;^3,040,ii9; value of products, 

;^5, 546,448. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products ^337>78o 1 Tar and turpentine 1^295,500 

Lumber, sawed 3,060,291 I Tobacco and cigars 1,347,555 

Total steam and water power in use, 7,147 horse-power. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K2i\\r02ids in 1883, 9^4 
miles of line; miles operated, 490; cost, ;^23,762,424; total in- 
vestment, ;^27, 19 1,1 94. Steam craft, 70 ; tonnage, 6,827 ; value, 
;^448,500. Sail craft, 323; tonnage, 25,333; value, ;^633,300. 
Barges, 6; value, ;^3,ooo. Length of canals in operation, "10,5 
miles; cost, ;^70,ooo. This does not include the canals now 
building for drainage purposes. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal property (1883), ;^ 5 6,000,000 ; State taxation (1883), 50 
cents on ;^ 100, ^317,625 ; county taxation, ;^266,3o6; city and 
town taxation, ;^ioi,944; State debt (1883), funded, ;^i,276,50O, 
floating, ;^3 1,287; county and local indebtedness, ;^i,49i,629. 

GOVERNMENT.— Capital, Tallahassee. Governor elected 
for four years. Salary, ;^3,500. The other State officers, se- 
lected for four years, are: Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^500; 
Secretary of State, ;^2,ooo; Treasurer, ;^2,ooo; Comptroller, 
;$2,ooo ; Attorney-General, ^2,000 ; Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, ^2,000; Adjutant-General, ;^2,ooo; Commissioner of 
Lands, ;^ 1,200. 

The Legislature is composed of 32 Senators and 76 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Salary of each, $6 per day and 10 cents mileage. 
Legislature meets biennially on Tuesday after first Monday in 
January. Session limited to 60 days. 

Sfate, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Mo^ftday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salary, 
^3>500i and two associates, salary of each, ;^3,ooo. They are 
appointed by the Governor and Senate for life or during good 
behavior. 

Representatives in Congress, 2 ; Presidential electors, 4. 



294 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



POLITICS for twelve years : 



Dem. 
1872 Governor. . ..16,004 
1872 President. . . . 15,428 

1874 Congress 1 7,555 

1876 Governor. .. .24,179 
1876 President, . . .22,923 

1878 Congress 20,171 

1880 President. . . .27,964 

1880 Governor 28,341 

1882 Congress 24,059 



Rep. 
17,603 

17,765 

18,600 

23,984 

23,849 (Disputed) 

17,927 

23,654 
23,285 
20,098 



Ind. 



3.547 



Maj. 
1,599 R. 
2,337 R. 

1,045 R. 

195 D. 
1,061 R. 
2,244 D. 
4,310 D. 
5,056 D. 

414 D. 



GEORGIA. 




NAME. — So called in honor of George II., of England. 
^Z?J//5S/(9A^.— Ratified the Constitution, January 2, 1788. 
AREA, — Square miles, 58,980; acres, 37,747,200; persons 
to a square mile, 26.15. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 

Per cent of 

Census. Pop. increase. 

1790 82,548 

1800 162,686 97.0 

1810 252,433 55.1 

1820 340,985 35 -o 

1830 516,823 51.5 



Census. Pop. 

1840 631,392 

1850 906,185 

i860 1,057,286 

1870 1,184,109 

1880 1,542,180 



Per cent of 
increase. 

337 
31.0 
16.6 
1 1.9 
30.2 



Male 762,981 Native 1,531,616 

Female. .779,199 Foreign... 10,564 

Dwellings 289,474 

Families 303,060 

Voters — Males over 21 321,438 

By Counties for 



1880 by Classes. 

White 816,906 Chinese 17 

Black 725,133 Indian 124 

Persons to a dwelling 5-33 

'* " family 5.09 

Natural militia, 18-44 275,815 

three Censuses, 



Counties. 1880. 

AppOng 5,276 

Baker 1,?P1 

Baldwin 13,806 

Banks 7,337 



1870. 
5,086 
6,843 
10,618 

4,973 



i860. 

4,190 
4.985 
9,078 

4,707 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Bartow 18,690 16,566. 15,724 

Berrien 6,619 4i5i8 3,475 

Bibb 27,147 21,255 16,291 

Brooks 11,727 8,342 6,356 



RULING BY STATES. 



295 



By Counties for three Censuses — Coniinued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Bryan 4,929 

Bullock 8,053 

Burke 27,128 

Butts 8,311 

Calhoun 7,024 

Camden 6,183 

Campbell 9,97° 

Carroll 16,901 

Catoosa 4,739 

Charleton 2,154 

Chatham 45,023 

Chattahoochee 5,670 

Chattooga 10,021 

Cherokee 14,325 

Clarke 11,702 

Clay 6,650 

Clayton 8,027 

Clinch 4,138 

Cobb 20,748 

Coffee 5,070 

Colquitt 2,527 

Columbia 10,465 

Coweta 21,109 

Crawford 8,656 

Dade 4,702 

Dawson 5,837 

Decatur 19,072 

De Kalb 14,497 

Dodge 5,358 

Dooly, 12,420 

Dougherty 12,622 

Douglas 6,934 

Early 7,6ii 

Echols 2,553 

Eifingham 5,979 

Elbert 12,957 

Emanuel 9,759 

Fannin 7,245 

Fayette .. 8,605 

Floyd 24,418 

Forsyth 10,559 

Franklin ii,453 

Fulton 49,137 

Gilmer 8,386 

Glascock 3,577 

Giynn 6,497 

Gordon 11,171 

Greene..... 1 7,547 

Gwinnett 19,531 

Habersham 8,718 

Hall 15,298 

Hancock 16,989 

Haralson 5,974 

Harris 15,758 

Hart 9,094 

Heard 8,769 

Henry 14,193 

Houston 22,414 

Irwin 2,696 

Jackson 16,297 

Jasper 11,851 

Jefferson 15,671 

Johnson 4,800 

Jones 11,613 

Laurens 10,053 



1870. 


i86o. 


5,252 


4,015 


5,610 


5,668 


17,679 


17,165 


6,941 


6,455 


5,503 


4,913 


4,615 


5,420 


9,176 


8,301 


11,782 


11.991 


4,409 


5,082 


1,897 


1,780 


41,279 


31,043 


6,059 


5,797 


6,902 


7,165 


10,399 


11,291 


12,941 


11,218 


5,493 


4,893 


5.477 


4,466 


3,945 


3,063 


13,814 


14,242 


3,192 


2,879 


1,654 


1,316 


13,529 


11,860 


15,875 


14.703 


7,557 


7,693 


3,033 


3,069 




3,856 


15,183 


11,922 


10,014 


7,806 


9,790 


8,917 


",517 


8,295 


6,998 


6,149 


1,978 


1,491 


4,214 


4,755 


9,249 


10,433 


6,134 


5,081 


5,429 


5,139 


8,2:^1 


7,047 


17,230 


15,195 


7,983 


7,749 


7,893 


7,393 


33,446 


14,427 


6.644 


6,724 


2,736 


2,437 


5,376 


3,889 


9,268 


10,146 


12,454 


12,652 


12,431 


12,940 


6,322 


5,966 


9,607 


9,366 


11,317 


12,044 


4,004 


3,039 


13,284 


13,736 


6,783 


6,137 


7,866 


7,805 


10,102 


10,702 


20,406 


15,611 


1,837 


1,699 


ii,i8i 


10,605 


10,439 


10,743 


12,190 


10,219 


2,964 


2,919 


9.436 


9,107 


7,834 


6,998 



Counties. 1880. 

Lee 10,577 

Liberty 10,649 

Lincoln 6,412 

Lowndes 11,049 

Lumpkin 6,526 

McDufifie 9>449 

Mcintosh 6,241 

Macon 11,675 

Madison 7,978 

Marion 8,598 

Meriwether 17,651 

Miller 3,720 

Milton ; 6,261 

Mitchell 9,392 

Monroe i8,8c8 

Montgomery 5,381 

Morgan 14,032 

Murray 8,269 

Muscogee 19,322 

Newton 13,623 

Oconee 6,351 

Oglethorpe 15,400 

Paulding 10,887 

Pickens 6,790 

Pierce 4,538' 

Pike 15,849 

Polk 11,952 

Pulaski 14,058 

Putnam i4,539 

Quitman 4,392 

Rabun 4,634 

Randolph 13,341 

Richmond 34,665 

Rockdale 6,838 

Schley 5,302 

Screven 12,786 

Spalding i2,585 

Stewart 13,998 

Sumter 18,239 

Talbot 14,115 

Taliaferro 7,034 

Tattnall 6,988 

Taylor 8,597 

Telfair 4,828 

Terrell 10,451 

Thomas 20,597 

Towns 3,261 

Troup 20,565 

Twiggs 8,918 

Union 6,431 

Upson 12,400 

Walker 11,056 

Walton 15,622 

Ware 4,i59 

Warren 10,885 

Washington 21,964 

Wayne 5,980 

Webster 5,237 

White 5,341 

Whitfield 11,900 

Wilcox 3,109 

Wilkes 15,985 

Wilkinson ....12,061 

Worth 5,892 



1870. 


i860. 


9,5^7 


7,196 


7,688 


8,367 


5,413 


5,466 


8,321 


5,249 


5,161 


4,626 


4,491 


5,546 


11,458 


8.449 


5,227 


5,933 


8,000 


7,390 


13,756 


15,330 


3,091 
4,284 


1,791 


4,602 


6,633 


4,308 


17,213 


15,953 


3,586 


2,997 


10,696 


9,997 


6,500 


7.083 


16,663 


16,584 


14,615 


14,320 


11,782 


11,549 
7,038 


7,639 


5,317 


4,951 


2,778 


1,973 


10,905 


10,078 


7,822 


6,29s 


11,940 


8,744 


10,461 


10.125 


4,150 


3,499 


3,256 


3,271 


10,561 


9,571 


25,724 


21,284 


5,129 


4,633 


9.175 


8,274 


10,205 


8,699 


14,204 


13,422 


16,559 


9,428 


11,913 


13,616 


4,796 


4,583 


4,860 


4,352 


7,143 


5,998 


3,245 


2,713 


9,053 


6,232 


14,523 


10,766 


2,780 


2,459 


17,632 


16.262, 


8,545 


8,320 


5,267 


4,413 


9,430 


9,910 


9,925 


10,082 


11,038 


11,074 


2,286 


2,209 


10,545 


9,820 


15,842 


12,698 


2,177 


2,26» 


4.677 


5,030 


4,606 


3,31s 


10,117 


10,047 


2,439 


2, IIS 


11,796 


11,420 


9,383 


9,376 


3,778 


2,763 



EDUCATION.— Colleges, 7 ', instructors, 68 ; students, 524. 

Public schools, 5.939 J value of school property, ^1,046,026; 
teachers, 6,146; teachers' salaries, ;^6 16,096; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^659,56o; expended for same (1882), $584,174; school 



296 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



age, .6-18 years; school population {1882), 507,861 ; pupils en- 
rolled (1882), 256,432; average attendance (1882), 164,180; 
average length of school session in 1882, 65 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 446,683, being 42.8 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 128,362; foreign white, 
572 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 391,482 ; total, 520,416, being 
49.9 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 16; others, 184; total, 200. Circulation, 291,631. 

OCCUPATIONS, — Persons engaged in agriculture, 432,204; 
in professional and personal service, 104,269 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 25,222; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
36,167. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 138,626; total acres in 
farms, 26,043,282; improved acres, 8,204,720; average size of 
farms, 188 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^III,9I0,540; 
value of implements, ;^5, 317,416; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^67,028,929. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 16,662 bush. 

Buckwheat 402 " 

Butler 7,424,485 lbs. 

Cheese 19. 151 " 

Cotton 814,441 bales. 

Hay 14,409 tons. 

Indian Corn 23,202,018 bush. 

Milk 374,645 gal- 
Oats 5,548,743 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products ^782,972 

Potatoes, Irish 249,590 bush. 

sweet 4,397,778 " 

Rice 25,369,687 lbs. 

Rye 101,716 bush. 

Sug. & niol., 601 hhds. 1,565.784 gal. 

Tobacco 228,590 lbs. 

Wheat 3,159,771 bush. 

Wool. 1,289,560 lbs. 



Horses . 



Live- Stock. 

Number 
",520 



Working oxen 50,026 

Milch cows 315,073 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I 



Number. 
Other cattle 544,812 



Mules and asses 132,078 ! Sheep 527,829 



Swine . . , . » 1 ,47 1 ,003 

880 $25,930,352 

MANUFACTURES. — Number of establishments, 3,593 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^20,672,4io; hands employed, 24,875 ; wages paid, 
155,266,152 ; value of materials, ;^24, 143,939; value of products, 
$36,440,948. 

The principal manufactures are : 



RULING BY STATES. 297 



Iron and steel $990,850 

Lumber sawed 4,875,310 

Rice cleaning 1,488,769 

Tar and turpentine i>455>739 



Agricultural implements $601,935 

Carriages and wagons 582,581 

Cotton goods 6,513,490 

Flouring mill products 9,793,898 

Machinery 1,299,491 

Total steam and water-power in use, 51,169 horse-power. 
MINING.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $81,029 

Silver 332 

Coal, bituminous 154,644 tons. 231,605 

Iron ore 72,705 " 120,692 

Copper ingots 922 ll)s. 

Minor minerals 120,135 

Total value of precious minerals, $81,361. Non-precious, $472,432. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Kmlroads in 1883, 2,371 
miles of line; miles operated, 2,321; cost, ;^6i, 872,829; total 
investment, ;^72,825,I30. Canal lines operated, 25 miles; cost, 
;^i,907,8i8. Steam craft, 44; tonnage, 13,331; value, ;^i,387,- 
300. Sail craft, 86; tonnage, 9,354; value, ^^233,850. Canal 
boats, 20; barges and flats, 55. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^I48,057,235 ; of personal property (1882^), ^106,195,- 
395 ; State taxation (1883), 30 cents on ;^ioo, ;^74i,824 ; county- 
taxation, ;^ 1, 076,42 1 ; city and town taxation, ^1,055,488, Prop- 
erty of cotton factories and iron works is exempt from taxation. 
State debt, Oct. I, 1882, net, ;^9,624,i35 ; county, city and town 
indebtedness, ;^9,730,403. 

GOVERNMENT— C2ip\ta\, Atlanta. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^3,ooo. The other State officers are : Secre- 
tary of State, two years, salary, $2,000; Treasurer, two years, 
;^2,ooo ; Comptroller-General, two years, ;^2,ooo ; Attorney-Gen- 
eral, twp years, ;^2,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruction, two 
year^, ;^2,ooo; Adjutant-General, two years; Commissioner 
of Agriculture, four years, $2,500; State Librarian, two years, 
$1,000. 

The Legislature is composed of 44 Senators and 175 Repre- 
sentatives, both elected for two years. Salary, $4 a day and 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Wednesday in 
November. Session limited to 40 days, but may be extended 
by special vote. 



298 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

State elections are held every second year on first Wednesday 
in October. Congressional and Presidential elections held 
Tuesday after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two asso- 
ciates, elected for four years by the Legislature. Salary of 
each, ;^2,5oo. 

Representatives in Congress, lo; Presidential electors, 12. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. 

1872 Governor 103,529 

1872 President 76,278 

1874 Congress! 93.347 

1876 President 138,756 

1876 Governor 110,617 

1880 President 102,407 

1880 Governor 1 18,349 

1882 Governor 107,253 



Rep. 


Ind. 


Maj. 


46,643 




56,886 D. 


62,715 


4,000 


13.563 D. 


33.161 





60,186 D. 


50.538 





88,218 D. 


34,529 





76,088 D. 


54,086 





48,321 D. 





64,004 


54,345 D. 




44,896 


62,357 D. 



IDAHO TERRITORY. 

NAME. — Perpetuates that of an Indian tribe. 
6>i?6^^A7Z/477(9iV:— Act of organization dated March 3, 1863. 
AREA. — Square miles, 84,290; acres, 53,945,600; persons to 
a square mile, 0.39. 

POPULATION d.nd rate of increase: 

1870 14,999 Per cent, of increase. 

1880 32,610 1 17.4 

1880 by Classes. 

Males 21,818 Native 22,636 White 29,013 Chinese 3,379 

Females. .10,792 Foreign. , . 9,974 Black. ... 53 Indians 165 

Dw^ellings 7, 700 Persons to a dwelling 4.24 

Families 7,774 " " family 4.19 

Voters — Males over 21 14,795 Natural militia, 18-44 11,726 

By Cou7tties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 1B70. i860. 

Ada 4,674 2,675 

Alturas 1,6^3 689 

Bear Lake 3,235 

Boise 3,214 3,834 

Cassia 1,312 

Idaho 2,031 849 

Kootenai 518 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Lemhi 2,230 988 

Nez Perce 3,965 1,607 

Oneida 6,964 1,922 

Owyhee 1,426 1,713 

Soshone 469 722 

Washington 879 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, 128; value of school prop- 



RULING BY STATES. 299 

erty, ^31,000; teachers, 129; teachers' salaries, ;^33,42i ; receipts 
for school purposes, ;$50,234 ; expended for same, ;^38,4ii; 
school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 9,650; pupils 
enrolled ( 1 881), 6,080; average attendance (188 1), 4,127; aver- 
age length of school session in 1881, 150 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 1,384, being 5.5 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 443; foreign white, 341 ; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 994; total, 1,778, being 7.1 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, o; others, 8. Circulation, 5,000. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 3,858; in 
professional and personal service, 3,861 ; in trade and transpor- 
tation, 1,327; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 6,532. 

AGRICULTURE.— ^umhtv of farms, 1,885; total acres in 
farms, 327,798; improved acres, 197,407; average size of farms, 
174 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^^2, 832, 890; value of 
implements, ;^363,930; value of all farm products sold, con- 
sumed or on hand, ;^ 1,5 15,3 14. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products $23,147 

Potatoes, Irish 157,307 bush. 

Rye 4»34i '* 

Tobacco 400 lbs. 

Wheat 540,589 bush. 

Wool 127,149 lbs. 



Quantity, 

Barley 274,750 bush. 

Butter 310,644 lbs. 

Cheese 20,295 " 

Hay 40,053 tons. 

Indian Corn 16,408 bush. 

Milk 15,627 gal. 

Oats 462,236 bush. 

Live- Stock. 

Number. 

Horses 24,300 

Mules and asses 610 

Working oxen 737 

Milch cows 12,838 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ;^2, 246,800 

MANUFACTURES.— ^umh^v oi establishments, 162; capi- 
tal invested, ^677,215; hands employed, 388; wages paid, 
;^I36,326; value of material, ^^844,874; value of products, ;^i,- 

271,317. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products $520,986 | Lumber sawed $ZA9i^ZS 

Total steam and water power in use, 1,682 horse-power. 



Number. 

Other cattle 71 ,292 

Sheep 27,326 

Swine 14,178 



300 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

MINING.— Qud^nWty : 

Value. 

Gold j55i,479»653 

Silver. 464,55° 

Copper ingots 150,000 lbs. 

Total precious minerals ;^i, 944,203 

FINANCIAL Condition— Assessed value of real and 
personal property (1883), ;^i 3,567,525. Territorial taxation 
(1883), 25 cents on ^100, ^101,900; county taxation, ;^ 139,088; 
city and town, ;^8,343 ; Territorial debt (1883), funded, ^69,248; 
county and town indebtedness, ;$ 146,93 8. 

GOVERNMENT.— Csipitsil, Boise City. The Governor is 
appointed for four years by President and Senate of United 
States. Salary, ;^2,6oo. The other officers are a Secretary (four 
years), salary, ;^ 1,800; Treasurer (two years), ;^ 1,000; Auditor 
(two years), $1,800. 

The Legislature consists of 12 Senators and 24 Representa- 
tives, both elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $4 per 
day and 20 cents mileage. Sessions biennial, beginning on second 
Monday in December, and limited to 60 days. 

Territorial and Delegate elections held on Tuesday after the 
first Monday in November. 

The Judiciary is composed of a Chief Justice, and two Asso- 
ciates, each appointed by the President and Senate for four years. 
Salary of each, ;^3,ooo. 

Representative in Congress, i Delegate. 

POLITICS.— Vote for Delegate : 

Dem, Rep. Maj. 

1878 3,645 2,294 1,351 I^- 

1880 ....3,604 2,090 1,514 D. 

1882 about 3,500 R. 



RULING BY STATES. 



301 




ILLINOIS. 

NAME. — So called from the Illinois River, or tribe, and that 
from the Indian, illini, men, with the French termination ois, 
" tribe of men," or *' real men." Popular names, " Sucker State " 
and " Prairie State." 

ADMISSION.— Ox%2A\\z^A as a Territory, Feb. 3, 1809; act 
of admission dated Dec. 3, 181 8; actual admission, same date. 

AREA. — Square miles, 56,000; acres, 35,840,000; persons 
to scjuare mile, 54.96. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1810 12,282 

1820 55»i62 

1830 157,445 

1840 476,183 



Per cenl. of 
increase. 

349.1 
185.4 
202.4 



Census. Pop. 

1850 851,470 

i860 1,711,951 

1870 2,539,891 

1880 3,077.871 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
788 

lOI.O 

48.3 
21. 1 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 1,586,523 Native 2,494,295 

Female. .1,491,348 Foreign... 583,576 

Dwellings 538,221 

Families 591,934 

Voters — Males over 21 796,847 



White. 
Black , 



3.031,151 
46,368 



Chinese. 
Indians. 



140 



Persons to a dwelling 5.72 



family. 
Natural militia, 18-44. 



65 



5.20 
1,310 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 59, 135 

Alexander 14,808 

Bond 14,866 

Boone ii,5<^8 

Brown 13,041 

Bureau 33,172 

Calhoun 7,467 

Carroll 16,976 

Cass 14,493 

Champaign 40,863 

Christian 28,227 

Clark 21,894 

Clay 16,192 

Clinton 18,714 

Coles 27,042 

Cook 607,524 



1870. 
56,362 
10,564 
13,152 
12,942 
12,205 
32,415 

6,562 
16,705 
11,580 
32,737 
20,363 
18,719 
15,875 
16,285 

349,966 



i860. 

41,323 
4,707 
9,8iS 

11,678 

26,426 
5,144 
11,733 
11,325 
14,629 
10,492 
14,987 
9,336 
10,941 
14,203 
144,954 



Counties. 1880. 

Crawford 16,197 

Cumberland 13.759 

DeKalb 26,768 

De Witt 17,010 

Douglas 15,853 

Du Page 19,161 

Edgar 25,499 

Edwards 8,597 

Effingham 18,920 

Fayette 23,241 

Ford 15,099 

Franklin 16,129 

Fulton 41,240 

Gallatin :.... 12,861 

Greene 23,010 

Grundy 16,732 



1870. 
13,889 
12,223 
23,265 
14,768 
13,484 
16,685 
21,45b 

7,565 
15,653 
19,638 

9,i''3 
12,652 
38,291 
11,134 
20,2^7 
14,938 



i860. 
11,551 

&,3ii 
19,086 
10,820 

7,140 
14,701 
16,925 

5,454 

7,816 
11,189 

1,979 

9,393 
33,338 

8,055 
16,093 
10,379 



302 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses. — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Hamilton 16,712 13,014 9,915 

Hancock 35,337 35,935 29,061 

Hardin 6,024 5, 1^3 3.759 

Henderson 10,722 12,582 9, 501 

Henry 3^,597 35,5o6 20,660 

Iroquois 35, 45^ 25,782 12,325 

Jackson 22,505 19,634 9,589 

Jasper i4,5i5 11,234 8,364 

Jefferson 20,686 17,864 12,965 

Jersey 15,542 i5.o54 12,051 

Jo Daviess 27,528 27,820 27,325 

Johnson 13,078 11,248 9,342 

Kane 44,939 39,o9i 30,062 

Kankakee 25,047 24,352 15.412 

Kendall 13,083 12,399 ^3,074 

Knox 38,344 39.522 28,663 

Lake 21,296 21,014 18,257 

La Salle 70,403 60,792 48,332 

Lawrence 13.663 12,533 9.214 

Lee 27,491 27,171 17,651 

Livingston 38,450 31, 47^ 1^.^37 

Logan 25,037 23,053 14,272 

McDonough 27,970 26,509 20,069 

McHenry 24,908 23,762 22,089 

McLean 60,100 53,988 28,772 

Macon 30,665 26,481 13,738 

Macoupin 37,692 32,726 24,602 

Madison 5 >,i26 44.131 31,251 

Marion 23,686 20,622 12,739 

Marshall i,so55 16,956 13, 437 

Mason 16,242 16,184 10,931 

Massac 10,443 9,581 6,213 

Menard 13,024 ii,735 9,584 

Mercer 19,502 18,769 15,042 

Monroe 13,682 12,982 12,832 



Counties. 1880. 

Montgomery 28,078 

Morgan 31,514 

Moultrie 13,699 

Ogle 29,937 

Peoria 55,355 

Perry 16,007 

Piatt 15,583 

Pike 33.751 

Pope 13,256 

Pulaski 9,507 

Putnam 5,554 

Randolph 25,690 

Richland 15,545 

Rock Island 38,302 

Saint Clair 61,806 

Saline 15,940 

Sangamon 52,894 

Schuyler 16,249 

Scott 10,741 

Shelby 30,270 

Stark 11,207 

Stephenson 31 ,963 

Tazewell 29,666 

Union 18,102 

Vermillion 41,588 

Wabash 9,945 

Warren 22,933 

Washington 21,112 

Wayne 21,291 

White 23,087 

Whiteside 30,885 

Will 53,422 

Williamson 19,324 

Winnebago 30,505 

Woodford 21,620 



1870. 

25,314 
28,463 
10,385 
27,492 
47.540 
13,723 
10,953 
30,768 
",437 
8,752 
6,280 
20,859 
12,803 

29,783 
51,068 
12,714 
46,352 
17,419 
10,530 
25,476 
10,751 
30,608 
27,903 
16,518 
30,388 
8,841 
23,174 
17,599 
19,758 
16,846 
27,503 
43,013 
17,329 
29,301 
18,956 



J 860. 

13,979 
22,112 

6,385 
22,888 
36,601 
9,552 
6,127 
27,249 
6,742 
3,943 
5,587 
17,205 

9,7" 
21,005 
37,694 

9,331 
32,274 
14,684 

9,069 

14,613 
9,004 
25,112 
21,470 
11,181 
19,800 
7.313 
18,336 
13,731 
12,223 
12,403 
18,737 
29,321 
12,205 

24,491 
13,282 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 28; instructors, 306; students, 

5,213- 

Public schools, 15,203 ; value of school property, ;^ 15,876,572 ; 
teachers, 15,912; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^4,985, 770; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^9,850,oii ; expended for same (1882), 
;^8, 567,675 ; school age, 6-21 years; school population (1883), 
1,037,567; pupils enrolled (1882), 713,431 ; average attendance 
(1882), 452,485 ; average length of school session in 1882, 150 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 96,809, being 4.3 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 88,519; foreign white, 
43,907; colored, Chinese and Indians, 12,971; total, 145,397, 
being 6.4 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 75 ; others, 957; total, 1,032. Circulation, 2,445,- 
960. 

OCCUPATION^. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 436,371; 
in professional and personal services, 229,467 ; in trade and trans- 



RULING BY STATES. 



303 



portatlon, 128,372; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
205,570. 

AGRICULTURE.— ^umhGY of farms, 255,741; total acres 
in farms, 31,673,645; improved acres, 26,115,154; average size 
of farms, 124 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 1,009,594,- 
580; value of implements, ;^33,739,95i ; value of all farm pro- 
ducts sold, consumed or on hand, 1^203,980, 137. 

Principal Products. 
Quantity 



Barley 1,229,523 bush. 

Buckwheat 178,859 '< 

Butter 53.657.943 ll^s. 

Cheese 1,035,069 " 

Hay 3,280,319 tons. 

Hops 7,788 lbs. 

Indian Corn .325,792,481 bush. 

Milk 45,419,719 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 63,189,200 bush. 

Orchard products ^3,502,583 

Potatoes, Irish 10,365,707 bush. 

*' sweet 249,407 •* 

Rye 3,121,785 " 

Tobacco 3>935>825 lbs. 

Wheat 51,110,502 bush. 

Wool 6,093,066 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses . 1,023,082 

Mules and asses 123,278 

Working oxen 3.34^ 

Milch cows 865,913 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i 



Number. 

Other cattle 1,515,063 

Sheep 1,037,073 

Swine 5,170,266 



1880 ^132,437,762 



MANUFACTURES.— dumber of establishments, 14,549; 
capital invested, ;^ 1 40,6 5 2, 066; hands einployed, 144,727; wages 
paid, ;^5 7,429,085 ; value of material, ;^2 89,843, 907 ; value of 
products, ;^4i4,864,673. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Agricultural implements. . . .^13,498,575 

Carriages and wagons 5,003,053 

Clothing, men's 19,356,849 

Flour and mill products. . . . 47,471,558 

Machinery I3,5i5»79i 

Furniture 7,644,638 



Iron and steel ^20,545,289 

Lard, refined 5,055,000 

Leather, tanned and curried. 7,793,450 
Liquors, malt and distilled. . 20,398,869 
Printing and publishing. . . . 7,114,939 
Slaughtering and packing. . . 97,891,517 



Total steam and water power in use, 144,288 horse-power. 
J//A^/A^6^.— Quantity : 



Coal, bituminous 6,089,514 tons 

Lead ore 722 " 

Zinc ore 3,ooo " 

Minor minerals 



Value. 

^8,739,755 

30,200 

39,000 

102,324 



Total mineral products ^8,91 1,279 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^^Wros^ds in 1883, 10,656 



304 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

miles of line; miles operated, 12,765; cost, ^505,822,453; total 
investment, $c,6o,$g4,yyS. Length of canal lines in operation, 
102 mile^; cost, ;^6, 5 57,681. Steam craft, 171 ; tonnage, 22,- 
546; value, ;^i, 226,800. Sail craft, 275 ; tonnage, 66,528; value, 
1^1,663, 200. Canal boats, 104; barges and flats, 91. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION.— Assessed valuation of real 
estate, 1883, ;^8i7,9i4,723 ; of personal estate, ;^ 180,442 ,970 ; 
State taxation (1882), 32 cents on ;^ 100, ;^2,740,000 ; county taxa- 
tion, ;^6,ooo,ooo ; city and town, etc., ;^ 18,500,000; State debt, 
none ; county, city and town debts, ^44,942,422. All municipal 
debts now limited to 5 per cent, of assessed value of property. 

GOVERNMENT.— CsLpltal, Springfield. Governor elected 
every four years. Salary, ;^6,ooo. The other State officers are : 
Lieutenant-Governor (four years), salary, ;^ 1,000; Secretary of 
State (four years), ;^3,500; Treasurer (two years), ;^3,500; Audi- 
tor (four years), ;^3,500 ; Attorney-General (four years), ;^3,500; 
Adjutant-General (appointed by Governor), ;^2,ooo; Superin- 
tendent Public Instruction (four years), ;^3,500 ; three Railroad 
Commissioners (two years), each, ;^3,500. 

The Legislature is composed of 51 Senators and 153 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of Legislator, $^ a day, ;^50 extra and mile- 
age. Legislature meets biennially on Wednesday after fi,rst 
Monday in January. No limit to session. 

StatCy^Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associates, 
elected by the people for nine years. Salary of each, ^5,000. 

Represefttatives in Congress, 20 ; Presidential electors, Z2. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. 

1872 President 241,248 

1874 Sup. Pub. Inst 166,984 

1876 President 278,232 

1876 Governor 279,226 

1878 Treasurer 206,458 

1880 President 318,031 

1880 Governor 314,565 

1882 Treasurer 254,542 



Dem. 


Greenback. 


Maj. 


184,770 





56,478 R. 


197,490 





30,506 D. 


258,601 





19,631 R. 


272,432 





6,794 R. 


170,085 


68,689 


36,373 R. 


277,321 


26,358 


40,710 R. 


277,532 


26,663 


37,033 R. 


249,067 




5.475 R- 



RULING BY STATES. 



305 




INDIANA. 

NAME. — Simply perpetuates the word "Indian." Popular 
name, " The Hoosier State." 

ADMISSION.— Ex^oX^d. into a Territory, May 7, 1800. Act 
of admission and actual admission, Dec. 11, 18 16, 

AREA. — Square miles, 35,910; acres, 22,982,400; persons to 
a square mile, 55.09. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1800 5,641 

1810 24,520 

1820 147,178 

1830 343.031 

1840 685,866 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

334-6 
500.2 

1330 
99.9 



Census. Pop. 

1850 988,416 

i860 1,350.428 

1870 1,680,637 

1880 1,978,301 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
44.1 
36.6 
24.4 
17.7 



Males. . . . 1,010,361 
Females.. 967,940 

Dwellings 

Families 



1880 by Classes. 

Native. ... 1,834,123 White. . 1,938,798 Chinese... 29 

Foreign. . . 144,178 Black . . 39,228 Indians . . . 246 

. . 375,225 Persons to a dwelling 5.27 

391,203 " " family 5.06 



Voters — Males over 21 498,437 Natural militia, 18-44 407,650 



By Comities for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 15,385 

Allen 54,763 

Bartholomew 22,777 

Benton 11,108 

Blackford 8,020 

Boone 25,922 

Brown 10,264 

Carroll 18,345 

Cass.. 27,611 

Clark 28,610 

Clay 25,854 

Clmton 23,472 

Crawford 12,356 

Daviess 21,552 

Dearborn .»... 26,671 

Decatur 19, 779 

De Kalb 20,225 

20 



1870. 
11,382 
43.494 
21,133 

5,615 

6,272 
22,593 

8,681 
16,152 

24,193 
24,770 
19,084 
17,330 
9,851 
16,747 
24,116 
19,053 
17,167 



i860. 

9,252 
29,328 
17,865 

2,809 

4,122 
16,753 

6,507 
13.489 
16,843 
20,502 
12,161 
14,505 

8,226 
13,323 
24,406 
17,294 
13,880 



Counties. 1 \ 

Delaware 22 

Dubois 15 

Elkhart 33 

Fayette ii, 

Floyd 24, 

Fountain 20, 

Franklin 20 

Fulton 14 

Gibson 22 

Grant 23 

Greene 22 

Hamilton 24 

Hancock 17 

Harrison 21 

Hendricks 22 

Henry 24 

Howard 19 



,926 
,992 
,454 
.394 
.590 
,228 
,092 
■ 301 
.742 
,618 
,996 
,801 
,123 
,326 
.981 
,016 
,584 



1870. 
19,030 
12,597 
26,026 
ir ,476 
23,300 
16,389 
20,223 
12,726 

17,371 
18,487 

19.514 
20,882 

15,123 
19,913 
20,277 
22,986 
15,847 



i860. 
15,753 
10,394 
20,986 
10,225 
20,183 
15,566 

19,549 
9,422 
14,532 
15,797 
16,041 
17,310 

12,8d2 
18,521 

i6;953 
20JI19 
12,524 



306 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Huntington 21,805 19,036 14,867 

Jackson 23,050 18,974 16,286 

Jasper 9,464 6,354 4,291 

Jay 19,282 15,000 11,399 

Jefferson 25,977 29,741 25,036 

Jennings 16,453 16,218 14,749 

Johnson i9»537 18,366 14,854 

Knox 26,324 21,562 16,056 

Kosciusko 26,494 23,531 17,418 

Lagrange 15,630 14,148 11,366 

Lake 15,091 12,339 9,145 

La Porte 30,985 27,062 22,919 

Lawrence 18, 543 14,628 13,692 

Madison 27,527 22,770 16,518 

Marion 102,782 71,939 39,855 

Marshall 23,414 20,211 12,722 

Martin 13, 475 11,103 8,975 

Miami 24,083 21,052 16,851 

Monroe 15,875 14,168 12,847 

Montgomery 27,316 23,765 20,888 

Morgan 18,900 17,528 16,110 

Newton 8,167 5,829 2,360 

Noble 22,956 20,389 14,915 

Ohio 5,563 5,837 5,462 

Orange 14,363 13.497 12,076 

Owen 15,901 16,137 14,376 

Parke 19,460 18,166 15,538 

Perry 16,997 14,801 11,847 

Pike 16,383 13,779 10,078 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Porter 17,227 13,942 10,313 

Posey 20,857 19,185 16,167 

Pulaski 9,851 7,8oi 5,711 

Putnam 22,501 21,514 20,681 

Randolph 26,435 22,862 18,997 

Ripley 21,627 20,977 19,054 

Rush 19,238 17,626 16,193 

Saint Joseph 33,178 25,322 18,455 

Sco" 8,343 7,873 7,303 

Shelby 25,257 21,892 19,569 

Spencer 22,122 17,998 14,556 

Starke 5,105 3,888 2,195 

Steuben 14,645 12,854 10,374 

Sullivan 20,336 18,453 15,064 

Switzerland 13,336 12,134 12,698 

Tippecanoe 35,966 33,515 25,726 

Tipton 14,407 11,953 8,170 

Union 7,673 6,341 7,109 

Vanderburgh 42,193 33,i45 20,552 

Vermillion 12,025 10,840 9,422 

Vigo... 45,658 33,549 22,517 

Wabash 25,241 21,305 17,547 

Warren ii,497 10,204 10,057 

Warrick 20,162 17,653 13,261 

Washington 18,955 18,495 17,909 

Wayne 38,613 34,048 29,558 

Wells 18,442 13,585 10,844 

White 13,795 10,554 8,258 

Whitley 16,941 14,399 io,730 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 15; instructors, 183; students, 2,- 

962. 

«♦- 

Public schools, 11,623; value of school property, ;^ 11,907,- 
541 ; teachers, 11,906; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^3, 143,529; re- 
ceipts for school purposes, $'jy26y,yoo\ expended for same (1882), 
;^4,793,704; school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 
708,596; pupils enrolled (1882), 498,792; average attendance 
(1882), 305,513; average length of school session in 1882, 133 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 70,008, being 4.8 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 87,786 ; foreign white, 
12,612; colored, Chinese "and Indians, 10,363; total, 110,761, 
being 7.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 40; others, 438; total, 478. Circulation, 591,- 
284. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 331,240; 
in professional and personal service, 137,281 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 56,432 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
110,127. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 194,013; total acres 



RULING BY STATES. 



307 



in farms, 20,420,983 ; improved acres, 13,933,738; average size 
of farms, 105 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^635,236,- 
1 1 1 ; value of implements, ;^20,476,988 ; total value of all farm 
products, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 1 14,707,082. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 382,835 bush. 

Buckwheat 89,707 " 

Butter 37,377,797 lbs. 

Cheese 367,561 " 

Hay 1,361,083 tons. 

Hops 21,236 lbs. 

Indian Corn 115,482,300 bush. 

Milk 6,723,840 galls. 



Quantity, 

Oats J^I5, 599,518 bush. 

Orchard products 2,757,359 

Potatoes, Irish 6,232,246 bush. 

" sweet.^ 244,930 " 

Rye ^ 303,105 " 

Tobacco 8,872,842 lbs. 

Wheat 47,284,853 bush. 

Wool 6,167,498 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 1 Number. 

Other cattle 864,846 

Sheep 1,100,511 

Swine 3,186,413 



Horses 581,444 

Mules and asses 5 1 ,780 

Working oxen 3,97° 

Milch cows 494,444 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^71,068,758 

MANUFACTURES.— ^xxmhQT of establishments, 11,198; 
capital invested, ;^65 ,742,962 ; hands employed, 69,508; wages 
paid, ;^2i,96o,888; value of material, ;^ 1 00,262,9 17; value of 
products, ;^ 148,006,4 II. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Iron and steel ^^54,55 1,403 

Liquors, malt and distilled. . 4,987,866 

Lumber sawed 14,260,830 

Slaughtering and packing 15,209,204 

Woollen goods 2,729,347 



Agricultural implements .... ^4,460,408 

Carriages and wagons 3,998,520 

Cars 4,960,500 

Cooperage 3,342,552 

Flour and mill products 29,591,397 

Machinery 6,833,648 

Total steam and water power in use, 131,770 horse-power. 
J//iVZV(7.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous 1,449,496 tons $2,143,093 

Minor minerals 7,599 " 22,291 

Total mineral product . . .^^2,165,384 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Rsiilroads in 1883, 6,366 
miles of line; miles operated, 6,948 ; cost, ;^277, 1 68,906; total 
investment, 1^295,052,158. Steam craft, 51; tonnage, 7,745; 
value, ;^399,ooo. Barges, 14. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 



308 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

(1883), ;^54i, 110,434; personal property, ;^220,858,07i ; State 
taxation (1881) 30 cents on ;^ioo, ;^2,764,85i ; county, ;^4,03i,- 
029; city, town, etc., ;^4,3 18,838. State debt, Nov. i, 1881, 
funded, 1^4,876,608 ; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^I3,- 

356,559- 

GOVERNMENT. — Capital, Indianapolis. Governor elected 

for four years. Salary, ;^5,ooo. The other State officers — term 
of each two years, except Lieutenant-Governor, which is four 
years, are — Lieutenant-Governor, salary, $% per day ; Secretary of 
State, ;^2,ooo; Treasurer, ^3,000; Auditor, ;^ 1,500; Attorney- 
General, ^2,500; Superintendent Public Instruction, ;^2,500; 
Secretary Board of Agriculture, ;^i,200; State Librarian, ;^ 1,200. 

The Legislature is composed of 50 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator $6 per day and 20 cents 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on Thursday after first 
Monday in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of five Justices elected by the 
people for a term of six years. Salary of each, ;^4,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 13; Presidential electors, 15. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Ind. and Gbk. Maj. 

1872 Governor 188,276 189,422 189 1,146 D. 

1872 President 189,144 163,637 1,417 25,507 R. 

1874 Secretary of State 164,902 182,154 16,233 17,252 D. 

1876 President 207,971 213,526 9,533 5,555 D- 

1876 Governor 208,080 213,164 13,213 5,084 D. 

1878 Secretary of State 180,657 194,77© 39,415 14, "3 ^• 

1880 Governor 231,405 224,452 14,881 6,953 R. 

1880 President 232,164 225,522 12,986 6,642 R. 

1882 Secretary of State 210,234 220,918 18,520 10,684 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



309 




IOWA. 



NAME.— The Sioux Indians called the " Gray Snow " tribe 
Pa/to/a, the " drowsy " or " sleepy ones." On French lips 
Pahoja took the form of Iowa. Popular name, " The Hawkeye 
State." 

ADMISSION.— Exeztedi into a Territory, June 12, 1838; 
act of admission, March 3, 1845 J actual admission, Dec. 28, 
1846. 

AREA. — Square miles, 55,475; acres, 35,504,000; persons to 
square mile, 29.29. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 

Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1840 43»ii2 

1850 192,214 345.8 

i860 674,913 251. 1 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 848,136 Native 1,362,965 White. 

Female. .776,479 Foreign... 261,650 

Dwellings. 301,507 

Families 310,894 

Voters— Males over 21 416,658 



Per cent, of 
Census, Pop. increase. 

1870. 1,194,020 76.9 

1880 1,624,615 36.0 



1,614,600 Chinese j^^ 

Black.... 9,516 Indians .... 466 

Persons to a dwelling 5.39 

" " family 5.23 

Natural militia, 18-44 333>890 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties, 1880. 

Adair 11,667 

Adams 11,888 

Allamakee 19.791 

Appanoose 16,636 

Audubon 7,448 

Benton 24,888 

Black Hawk 23,913 

Boone 20,838 

Bremer 14,081 

Buchanan 18,546 

Buena Vista 7,537 

Butler 14,293 

Calhoun 5,595 

Carroll 12,351 

Cass 16,943 

Cedar 18,936 

Cerro Gordo 11,461 



1870. 

3.982 

4,614 

17,868 

16,456 

1,212 

22,454 

21,706 

14,584 

12,528 

17,034 

1,585 

9,951 

1,602 

2,451 

5,464 

19,731 

4,722 



i860. 
984 

1.533 
12,237 

".931 

454 

8,496 

8,244 

4.232 

4,915 

7,906 

57 

3,724 

147 

281 

1,612 

12,949 

940 



Counties. 1880. 

Cherokee 8,240 

Chickasaw I4,534 

Clarke 11,513 

Clay 4,248 

Clayton 28,829 

Clinton 36,763 

Crawford 12,413 

Dallas 18,746 

Davis 16,468 

Decatur 15,336 

Delaware 17,950 

Des Moines 33,o99 

Dickinson 1,901 

Dubuque 42,996 

Emmett 1,550 

Fayette 22,258 

Floyd 14,677 



1870. 


i860. 


1,967 


58 


10,180 


4.336 


8,735 


5.427 


1,523 


52 


27,771 


20,728 


35.357 


18,938 


2,530 


383 


12,019 


5.244 


15,565 


13,764 


12,018 


8,677 


17,432 


11,024 


27,256 


19,611 


1.389 


180 


38,969 


31,164 


1,392 


105 


;S:?6i 


12,073 


3,744 



310 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 
i860. 
1,3=9 
5.074 



Counties. 1880. 1870. 

Franklin 10,249 4,738 

Fremont 17,652 11,174 

Greene 12,727 4,627 i,374 

Grundy 12,639 6,399 793 

Guthrie 14, 394 7,o6i 3,058 

Hamilton 11,252 6,055 1,699 

Hancock 3»453 999 ^79 

Hardin 17,807 13,684 5,440 

Harrison 16,649 8,931 3,621 

Henry 20,986 21,463 18,701 

Howard 10,837 6,282 3,168 

Humboldt 5,341 2,596 332 

Ida 4,382 226 43 

Iowa 19,221 16,644 8,029 

Jackson 23,771 22,619 18,493 

Jasper 25,963 22,116 9,883 

Jefferson 17,469 17,839 15,038 

Johnson 25,429 24,898 17,573 

Jones 21,052 19,731 13j3o6 

Keokuk 21,258 19,434 i3>27i 

Kossuth 6,178 3,351 416 

Lee 34,859 37,210 29,232 

Linn 37,237 31,080 18,947 

Louisa 13,142 12,877 10,370 

Lucas 14,530 10,388 5,766 

Lyon 1,968 221 

Madison 17,224 13,884 7,339 

Mahaska 25,202 22,508 14,816 

Marion 25,111 24,436 16,813 

Blarshall 23,752 17,576 6,015 

Mills 14,137 8,718 4,481 

Mitchell 14,363 9,582 3,4=9 

Monona 9,055 3,654 832 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Monroe 13,719 12,724 8,612 

Montgomery 15,895 5,934 1.256 

Muscatine 23,170 21,688 16,444 

O'Brien 4,155 715 8 

Osceola 2,219 

Page 19,667 9,975 4,419 

Palo Alto 4,131 1,336 132 

Plymouth 8,566 2,199 148 

Pocahontas 3,713 1,446 103 

Polk 42,395 27,857 11,625 

Pottawattamie 39,850 16,893 4,968 

Poweshiek 18,936 15,581 5,668 

Ringgold 12,085 5,691 2,923 

Sac 8,774 1,411 246 

Scott 41,266 38,599 25,959 

Shelby 12,696 2,540 818 

Sioux 5,426 576 10 

Story 16,906 11,651 4,051 

Tama 21,585 16,131 5,285 

Taylor 15,635 6,989 3,590 

Union 14,980 5,986 2,012 

Van Buren 17,043 17,672 17,081 

Wapello 25,285 22,346 14,518 

Warren 19,578 17,980 10,281 

Washington 20,374 18,952 14,235 

Wayne 16,127 11,287 6,409 

Webster i5,95i 10,484 2,504 

Winnebago 4,9i7 1,562 168 

Winneshiek 23,938 23,570 13,942 

Woodbury 14,996 6,172 1,119 

Worth... 7,953 2,892 756 

Wright... 5,062 2,392 653 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 19; instructors, 108; students, 
3>546. 

Public schools, 12,638; value of school property, ^,460,775 ; 
teachers, 12,794; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^3,075,87o; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^6,288,i67; expended for same (1882), 
;j^5, 525,449; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 
604,739; pupils enrolled (1882), 406,947; average attendance 
(1882), 253,688; average length of school session in 1882, 142 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 28, 11 7, being 2.4 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 23,660; foreign white, 20,677; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 2,272 ; total, 46,609, being 3.9 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 30; others, 549; total, 579. Circulation, 555,- 
408. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 303,557; 
in professional and personal service, 103,932 ; in trade and 
transportation, 50,872 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
69,941. 



RULING BY STATES 



311 



AGRICULTURE.— ^umhQv of farms, 185,351 ; total acres in 
farms, 24,752,700; improved acres, 19,866,541 ; average size of 
farms, 134 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^567 ,430,277 ; 
value of implements, ;^29,37 1,884; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 136, 103,473. 



Principal Products. 

Quantity. 

Barley 4,022,588 bush. 

Buckwheat 166,895 " 

Butter 55,481,958 lbs. 

Cheese 1,075,988 '« 

Hay 3,613,941 tons. 

Indian Corn 275,014,247 bush. 

Milk.. 15,965,612 galls. 

Oats 50,610,591 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products J? 1,494,365 

Potatoes, Irish 9,962,537 bush. 

" sweet 122,368 " 

Rye ' 1,518,605 " 

Tobacco . . 420,477 lbs. 

Wheat 31,154,205 bush. 

Wool 2,971,975 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number, 

Horses 792,322 

Mules and asses 44,424 

Working oxen 2,506 

Milch cows 854,187 

Total value of all farm products, June i, 1880 ^124,715,103 



Number. 

Other cattle 1,755,343 

Sheep 455,359 

Swine 6,034,316 



MANUFACTURES.— ^wmhQY of establishments, 6,921 ; cap- 
ital invested, ;^33,987,886; hands employed, 28,372; wages 
paid, ;^9,725,962; value of material, ;^48,704,3ii; value of 
products, ;^7i,045,926. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements $1,271,872 

Carriages and wagons 2,212,197 

Cheese and butter 1,736,400 

Clothing (men's) 1,508,398 

Flour and mill products 19,089,401 

Machinery 1,594,349 

Furniture 1 ,293,504 



Liquors, malt and distilled. ..$1,941,851 

Lumber, sawed 6,185,628 

Printing and publishing 1,399,289 

Saddlery and harness 2,068,486 

Sash, doors and blinds 1,286,072 

Slaughtering and packing 11,285,032 



Total steam and water power in use, 54,221 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qud^ntity: 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous 1,442,333 tons. $2,473,155 

Lead ore 384 " 19,172 

Total value of mineral products $2,492,327 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Rsiihoads in 1883, 2,880 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,932; cost, ;^99,752,62i ; total 
investment, ;^ 105,352,91 8. Total number of steam craft, 70 ; ton- 
nage, 9,862 ; value, :^ 3 87, 3 50. Barges and flats, 99. 



312 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— 'AssQss^d value of real estate 

(1883), ;^463, 824,466; personal property, ;^98, 809,203. State 
taxation (1883), 20 cents on ;^ioo, ;^i,228,2i6; county taxation, 
;^4,28o,09i ; city, town, etc., ;^5, 154,129. State debt (1883), 
funded, ;^245,435 ; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^7,592,- 

332. 

GOVERNMENT,— Cd^^itdX, Des Moines. Governor elected 
for two years. Salary, ;^3,ooo. The other State officers, all 
elected for two years, except the Railroad Commissioners, whose 
term is three years, are, Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^ 1,100; 
Secretary of State, ;^2,200; Treasurer, ;^2,200; Auditor, ;^2, 200; 
Attorney-General, ;^i,500; Adjutant-General, by Governor, $\^- 
500; Superintendent of Public Instruction, ;^2, 200; three Rail- 
road Commissioners, each, ;^3,ooo; State Librarian, by Governor, 

The Legislature is composed of 50 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years and Repre- 
sentatives for two years. Salary of each, ;^550 a year. Legis- 
lature meets biennially on second Monday in January. No limit 
to length of session. 

State elections are held annually on Tuesday after second 
Monday in October, except on Presidential years, when they are 
held on Tuesday after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four as- 
sociates, elected by the people for a term of six years. Salary of 
each, ;^4,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, ii; Presidential electors, 13. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Grbk. Maj. 

1872 President I3i>i73 7i.i34 •••• 60,039 R. 

1873 Governor 105,143 82,589 .... 22,554 R. 

1874 Secretary of State. 107,250 79.054 • • • • 28,196 R. 

1875 Governor 125,058 93.359 31,699 R. 

1876 President ,171,332 112,121 .... 59,211 R. 

1876 Secretary of State. 172,171 112,115 60,056 R. 

1877 Governor 121,546 79.353 42,193 R. 

1878 Secretary of State. 134,544 1,302 123,577 10,967 R. 

1879 Governor 157,571 85,056 45,429 72,515 R. 

1880 President 183,927 105,845 32,701 78,082 R. 

1 88 1 Governor 133,326 73,397 28,146 59,929 R. 

1882 Secretary of State, 149,05 1 112,180 30,817 36,^71 R. 

1883 Governor 164,182 139,093 23,089 25,089 R. 



RULING BY STATES. 



313 




KANSAS. 

NAME. — From Kansas river or tribe. The tribal name is 
written many ways, as Kansas, Kansaw, Kows. It evidently took 
its name from the river Kansas, which means " smoky water; " 
according to some, " good potato." 

ADMISSION.— Y^x^oX^d. into a Territory, May 30, 1854; 
act of admission and date of admission Jan. 29,41861. 

AREA. — Square miles, 81,700; acres, 53,288,000; persons to 
square mile, 12.19. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. Per cent, of 

i860 107,206 increase, 

1870 364,399 239.9 

1880 996,096 173.3 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 536,667 Native 886,010 White 952,155 Chinese 19 

Female.. .459,429 Foreign. . ..110,086 Black 43,107 Indians . . . .815 

Dwellings 189,432 Persons to a dwelling 5.26 

Families 197,679 " " family 5.04 

Voters — Males over 21 265,714 Natural militia, 18-44 223,338 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Allen ;.n,303 

Anderson 9>o57 

Arapahoe 3 

Atchison 26,668 

Barbour 2,661 

Barton 10,318 

Bourbon 19,591 

Breckenridge 

Brown 12,817 

Buffalo 191 

Butler 18,586 

Chase 6,o8i 

Chautauqua 11,072 

Cherokee 21,905 

Cheyenne 37 

Clark 163 

Clay 12,320 

S^'oyd 15,343 

Coffey ",438 



1870. 
7,022 
5,220 

15,5*7 



7,729 



15,076 
6,'823 



6,ioi 

3,197 
2,607 



3,035 
1,975 



11,038 



2,942 
2,323 
6,201 



i860. Counties. 1880. 

3,682 Comanche 372 

2,400 Cowley 21,538 

Crawford 16,851 

Davis 6,994 

Decatur 4,i8o 

Dickinson 15,251 

Doniphan 14,257 

Dorn 

Pouglas 21,700 

Edwards 2,409 

4^7 I Elk 10,623 

808 \ Ellis 6,179 

; Ellsworth 8,494 

[ Foote 411 

I Ford 3,122 

Franklin 16,797 

163 Godfrey 

Gove 1,196 

2,842 Graham 4,258 



1870. 

1,175 
8,160 
5,526 

3,043 
13,969 



20,592 



1,336 
1.185 



427 
.385 



i860. 



1,163 

■"378 

8,083 

88 

8,637 



3,030 
19 



314 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Grant 9 

Greeley 3 

Greenwood 10,548 

Hamilton x68 

Harper 4.^33 

Harvey ii.45i 

Hodgeman 1,7^4 

Howard 

Hunter 

ackson 10,718 

efferson 15,563 

ewell 17.475 

ohnson 16,853 

'ansas 9 

Kearney 159 

Kingman 3.713 

Labette 22,735 

Lane 6ji 

Leavenworth 32,355 

Lincoln 8,582 

Linn 15,298 

Lykins 

Lyon 17,326 

McGhee 

McPherson 17,143 

Madison 

Marion 12,453 

Marshall 16,136 

Meade 296 

Miami 17,802 

Mitchell 14,911 

Montgomery 18,213 

Morris 9,265 

Nemaha 12,462 

Neosho 15,121 

Ness 3,722 

Norton 6,998 

Osage 19,642 



1870. 


i860. 


3,484 


759 


2,794 






158 


6,053 


1,936 


12,526 


4,459 


207 




13,684 


4,364 


9.973 




32,444 


I2,6c6 


516 




12,174 


6,336 




4,980 


8,014 






1,501 


738 






636 


768 


74 


6,901 


2,280 


11,725 




485 




7.564 




2,225 


770 


7,339 


2,436 


10,2^6 




2 





7,648 



Counties. i 

Osborne 12 

Otoe 

Ottawa 10 

Pawnee 5 

Phillips 12 

Pottawatomie 16 

Pratt I 

Rawlins i 

Reno 12 

Republic 14 

Rice 9 

Riley 10 

Rooks 8 

Rush 5 

Russell 7, 

Saline 13 

Scott 

Sedgwick 18 

Sequoyah 

Seward 

Shawnee 29 

She/idan i 

Sherman 

Smith 13 

Stafford 4 

Stanton 

Stevens 

Sumner 20 

Thomas 

Trego 2 

Wabaunsee 8 

Wallace 

Washington 14 

Wichita 

Wilson 13 

Woodson 6 

Wyandotte 19. 



880. 
,517 



,307 
,396 
,014 
.350 
,890 
,623 
,826 

,913 
,292 
,430 
,112 
.490 

351 

,808 

43 

753 

568 

5 

.093 

,567 

,883 

.755 

5 

12 
,812 
161 
.535 
756 
686 
,910 

14 
775 
i535 
.143 



1870. 

33 

2,127 
179 


i860. 
•■■238 


7,848 


1,529 


1,281 

5 

5.105 


1,224 


•••^56 
4,246 




1,095 




3.121 


3,513 




•' 


66 




22 




""166 
3.362 


• 1,023 
••383 



6,694 

3,827 

10,015 



27 
1,488 

2,609 



EDUCATION.— CoWQgQS, 8; instructors, 8; students, 1,343. 

Public schools, 6,148 ; value of school property, ;^4,723,043 ; 
teachers, 6,619 j teachers' salaries (1882), ;^i, 296,256; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^2,i63,i6i ; expended for same (1882), 
;^2, 194,175 ; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 
357,920; pupils enrolled (1882), 269,945; average attendance 
(1882), 162,017; average length of school year in 1882, Todays. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 25,503, being 3.6 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 17,825; foreign white, 7,063; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 14,588; total, 39,476, being 5.6 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 21 ; others, 328; total, 349. Circulation, 290,- 
064. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 206,080; 
in professional and personal services, 53,507 : in trade and trans- 



RULING BY STATES. 31 5 

portation, 26,379; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

36,319- 

A GR/CC/LTURB.— Number of farms, 138,561 ; total acres in 

farms, 21,417,468; improved acres, 10,739,566; average size of 
farms, 155 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^235,I78,936 ; 
value of implements, ;^ 15,652,848*, total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^5 2,240,361. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 300,273 bush. 

Buckwheat i 24,421 " 

Butter 21,671,762 lbs. 

Cheese 483,987 " 

Hay 1,589,987 tons. 

Hops 500 lbs. 

Indian Corn ..105,729,325 bush. 

Milk 1,360,235 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 8,180,385 bush. 

Orchard products. .. . ^358,860 

Potatoes, Irish 2,894,198 bush. 

" sweet 195,225 " 

Rye 413.181 « 

Tobacco 191,609 lbs. 

Wheat 17,324,141 bush. 

Wool 2,855,832 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 



Number. 



Other cattle 1,015,935 

Sheep 499,67 1 

Swine 1,787,969 



Horses 430,907 

Mules and asses 64,869 

Working oxen 16,789 

Milch cows 418,333 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 ^60,907,149 

MANUFACTURES.— ^Mmhex of establishments, 2,803 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^II,I92,3I5 ; hands employed, 12,062; wages paid, 
;^3,995,oio; value of material, ;^2 1,453,141 ; value of products, 
;^30,843,777. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Carriages and wagons ^745,800 

Flour and mill products 11,858,022 

Iron and steel 1,004,100 



Slaughtering and packing.. . .^5,618,714 

Machinery 889,294 

Saddlery and harness 835,934 



Total steam and water power in use, 21,079 horse-pov/er. 
J//iV7/V6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous 763,597 tons $ 1 ,498, 1 68 

Lead ore io,68i " 460,980 

Zinc ore . . . 7,248 " 477,693 

Total mineral products ;^2,436,84l 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— KsWro^ds in 1883, 3,801 
miles of line ; miles operated, 3,761; cost, ^104,476,667; total 
investment, 1^153,967,7 14. 



316 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^i 27,863,782 ; of personal property, ;^75, 320,717. State 
debt (1883) funded, ;^i, 120,175; county indebtedness, ;^7,950,- 
921 ; city, town and township indebtedness, ;^6,967, 232. State 
taxation, 1883,43 cents on ;^ 100, ;^ 1,5 12,668 ; county, ;^2,o6o,- 
878; city, town and local, ;^ 1,470,804. 

GOVERNMENT.— C2i^\X.3\, Topeka. -Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^3,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 40 Senators and 125 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator $'^ a day and 1 5 cents mile- 
age. Sessions every second year, beginning on second Tuesday 
in January. Limit of session 50 days. ' 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two As- 
sociates, elected by the people for six years. Salary of each, 
;g3.ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 7 ; Presidential electors, 9. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. 

1872 President 67,048 

1874 Governor 48,594 

1876 Governor 69,073 

1876 President 78,322 

1878 Governor 74,020 

1880 President 121,549 

1880 Governor 115,104 

1882 Governor IS^SS 



Dem. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


32,970 




34,078 R. 


35,301 




13,293 R. 


46,204 




22,869 R. 


37,902 




40,420 R. 


37,208 


27,057 


36,412 R. 


59,789 


19,851 


61,570 R. 


63,557 


19,477 


51,647 R. 


83.107 


20,935 


7,952 D 



RULING BY STATES. 



317 




KENTUCKY. 

NAME. — So called from a Shawnee Indian word, Kantuckee, 
meaning " the head of a river," or the ** long river." Popular 
name, " State of the Dark and Bloody Ground." 

ADMISSION. — Act of admission, Feb. 4, 1791; admitted, 
June I, 1792. 

AREA. — Square miles, 40,000; acres, 25,600,000; persons 
to a square mile, 41.22. 

POPULATION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 73.677 

1800 220,955 

1810 406,511 

1820 ... 564,135 

1830 687,917 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

199.8 
839 
38-7 
21.9 



Census. Pop. 

1840 779,828 

1850 982,405 

i860 1,155,684 

1870 1,321,011 

1880 1,648,690 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

259 
17.6 

14.3 
24.8 



1880 by Classes. 



Males 832,590 Native.. . , . 1,589,173 

Females. .816,100 Foreign.... 59,517 

Dwellings 286,600 

Families 302,63 1 

Voters — Males over 21 376,221 



White. . ..1,377,179 Chinese 10 

Black..., 271,451 Indians 50 

Persons to a dwelling 5.75 

" " family.. 5.45 

Natural militia, 18-44 313,136 



By Counties for thi-ee Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adair 13,078 

Allen 12,089 

Anderson 9,361 

Ballard 14,378 

Barren 22,321 

Bath 11,982 

Bell 6,055 

Boone 11,996 

Bourbon 15,956 

Boyd 12,165 

Boyle 11,930 

Brachen 13,509 

Breathitt 7,742 

Breckinridge 17,486 

Bullitt 8,521 



1870. 


i860. 


11.065 


9,509 


10,296 


9,187 


5,449 


7,404 


12,576 


8,692 


17,780 


16,665 


10,145 


12,113 


3,731 




10,696 


11,196 


14,863 


14,860 


8,573 


6,044 


9,515 


9,304 


11,409 


11,021 


5,672 


4,980 


J 3, 440 


13.236 


7,781 


7,289 



Counties. \ 880. 

Butler 12,181 

Caldwell 11,282 

Calloway 13,295 

Campbell 37,440 

Carroll 8,953 

Carter 12,345 

Casey 10,983 

Christian 31,682 

Clark 12,115 

Clay 10,222 

Clinton 7,212 

Crittenden 11,688 

Cumberland 8,894 

Daviess 27,730 

Edmonson 7,222 



1870. 


i860. 


9.404 


7,927 


10,826 


9,318 


9,410 


9,915 


27,406 


20,909 


6,189 


6,578 


7,509 


8,516 


8,884 


6,466 


23,227 


21,627 


10,882 


11,484 


8,297 


6,652 


6,497 


5,781 


9,381 


8,796 




7,340 


20,714 


15,549 


4,459 


4,645 



318 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC 



By Counties for three Censttses — Continued. 



1870. 


i860. 


4,433 




9,198 


6,886 


26,656 


22,599 


13.398 


12,489 


7.877 


6,388 


15,300 


12,694 


6,161 


5.317 


5.074 


5,056 


10,376 


10,531 


9,529 


8,356 


19.398 


16,233 


11,580 


7,982 


9.379 


8,806 


11.463 


8,760 


6,591 


6,213 


15,705 


15,189 


4,415 


5,494 


12,993 


13,779 




10,348 


18,457 


14,262 


11,066 


11.949 


8,453 


7,008 


13,827 


11,875 


4.547 


3.087 


118,053 


89,404 


8,638 


9.465 


7.494 


5,306 


36,096 


25,467 


8,294 


7,707 


8,235 


6,891 


6,016 


5,488 


8,497 


7,601 


3,055 




4,608 


3,904 


9. "5 


8,361 


10,947 


10,647 


8,200 


7,213 


20,429 


19,021 


6,233 


5.807 


13,988 


10,360 


7.614 


6,144 


19,543 


17,207 


4,684 


3,485 



1870. 
12,838 
9,455 



i860. 

12,593 
6,982 



l8,222 



13,701 

6,745 

8,551 

7,859 

9,237 

10,725 

15,799 

11,030 

12,209 

7,283 

12,719 

5,335 

10,443 

3,950 

7,384 

2,257 

17,201 



Counties. 1880. 

Elliott 6,567' 

Estill 9,860 

Fayette 29,023 

Fleming 15,221 

Floyd 10,176 

Franklin 18,699 

Fulton 7,977 

Gallatin 4,832 

Garrard '1,704 

Grant 13.083 

Graves 24,138 

Grayson 15,784 

Green 11,871 

Greenup 13,371 

Hancock 8,563 

Hardin 22,564 

Harlan 5,278 

Harrison 16,504 

Hart 17,133 

Henderson 24,515 

Henry 14,^92 

Hickman 10,651 

Hopkins 19,122 

Jackson 6,678 

Jefferson 146,010 

Jessamine 10,864 

Johnson 9,155 

Kenton 43,983 

Knox 10,587 

La Rue 9,793 

Laurel 9,131 

Lawrence 13,262 

Lee 4,254 

Leslie 3.740 

Letcher 6,601 

Lewis 13,154 

Lincoln 15,080 

Livingston..'. 9,165 

Logan 24,358 

Lyon 6,768 

McCracken 16,262 

McLean 9,293 

Madison 22,052 

Magoffin 6,944 

EDUCATION. — Colleges, 15; instructors, 142; students, 
1,750. ^ 

Public schools, 7,392; value of school property, ;^2, 143,013; 
teachers, 7,706 ; teachers' salaries, ;^ 1,025, 659 ; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^2,i63,26i ; expended for same (1881), ;^i, 248,524; 
school age, 6-20; school population (1881), 553,638; pupils 
enrolled ( 1 881), 238,440; average attendance, 192,331; average 
length of school session in 1880, 102 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 258,186, being 22.2 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 208,796 ; foreign 
white, 5,701 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 133,895 ; total, 
348,392, being 29.9 per cent, of all persons over ten years of 
age. 



Counties. 1880. 

Marion 14,693 

Marshall 9,647 

Martin 3^057 

Mason 20,469 

Meade 10,323 

Menifee 3.755 

Mercer 14,142 

Metcalfe 9,423 

Monroe 10,741 

Montgomery 10,566 

Morgan 8,455 

Miihlenbergh 15,098 

Nelson ^16,609 

Nicholas 11,869 

Ohio 19,669 

Oldham 7,667 

Owen 17,401 

Owsley 4,942 

Pendleton 16,702 

Perry 5,607 

Pike 13,001 

Powell 3.639 

Pulaski 21,318 

Robertson 5,814 

Rockcastle 9,670 

Rowan 4,420 

Russell 7,591 

Scott 14,965 

Shelby 16,813 

Simpson 10,641 

Spencer 7,040 

Taylor 9,259 

Todd 15,994 

Trigg 14,489 

Trimble 7,171 

Union 17,809 

Warren 27,531 

Washington 14,419 

Wayne 12,512 

Webster 14,246 

Whitley 12,000 

Wolfe.... 5,638 

Woodford 11,800 



18,126 

9,485 

1,986 

13,144 

7,934 

9,231 

7,557 

5.975 

12,638 

14,804 

9,129 

15,561 

9,027 

14,309 

3,889 

14,030 

4,274 

9.562 

2,599 

17,670 

5,399 

7.145 

2,991 

5,809 

11,607 

15,733 

9,573 

5.956 

8,226 

12,612 

13,686 

5,577 

13,640 

21,742 

12,464 

10,602 

10,937 
8,278 
3.603 
8,240 



5,343 
2,282 
6,024 
14,417 
16,433 
8,146 
6,188 
7,481 
11,575 
11,051 
5,880 
12,791 
17,320 
",575 
10,259 

7,533 
7,762 



11,219 



J 



RULING BY STATES. 



319 



Daily papers, ii ; others, 202; total, 213. Circulation, 402,- 
070. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 320,571 ; 
in professional and personal service, 104,239 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 33,563 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
61,481. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 166,453 ; total acres in 
farms, 21,495,240; improved acres, 10,731,683; average size of 
farms, 129 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^299,298,63i ; 
value of implements, ;^9,734,634 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^63,850,I55. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 486,326 bush. 

Buckwheat 9,942 " 

Butter 18,21 1,904 lbs. 

Cheese 58,468 " 

Cotton 1)367 bales. 

Hay 218,739 tons. 

Indian Corn 72,852,263 bush. 

Milk 2,5 13,209 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 4,580,738 bush. 

Orchard products ^1,377,670 

Potatoes, Irish 2,269,890 bush. 

" sweet 1,017,854 " 

Rye.. 668,050 " 

Tobacco 171,120,784 lbs. 

Wheat 11,356,113 bush. 

Wool 4,592,576 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



* Number. 

Horses .• 372,648 

Mules and asses 116,153 

Working .oxen 36,166 

Milch cows 301,882 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 

Other cattle 505,746 

Sheep 1 ,000,269 

Swine 2,225,225 



[880 ^^49,670,567 



MANUFACTURES.— ^yxmh&x of establishments, 5,328; 
capital invested, ;^45, 3 1 3,039 ; hands employed, 37,491 ; wages 
paid, ;^i 1,657,844; value of material, ;^47,46i,890; value of 
products, ;^75 483.377- 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements ^1,647,116 

Carriages and wagons 1,474,475 

Clothing, men's 1,506,668 

Cooperage i ,243,930 

Flour and mill products 9,604,147 

Machinery 3,013,079 

Iron and steel 5,090,029 

Leather, tanned and curried.. 3,199,843 



Liquors, malt and distilled. .$10,772,677 

Lumber, sawed and planed. . 5,014,999 

Printing and publishing 1,289,316 

Saddlery and harness 1,370,885 

Slaughtering and packing. .. 4,538,888 

Tobacco and cigars 3,734,^35 

Woollen goods 1,264,988 



Total steam and water power in use, 54,929 horse-power. 



320 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

MINING.— QudinWty : 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous..... 935,857 tons ;55i, 123,046 

Iron ore 33>522 " 88,930 

Total value of mineral products ^1,211,976 

Add petroleum 5,376 barrels of 42 galls. @, 2j^ cts. pergal. 5,o8o 

Grand total of all mineral products ^1,217,056 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES,— ^3:i\vod.ds in 1883, 2,499 
miles of line; miles operated, 2,603; cost, ;^I29,1 10,231 ; 
total investment, ;^ 1 50,744,624. Steam craft, 91; tonnage, 
23,257 ; value, ;^i, 300,500. Barges and flats, 252 ; value, ;^I26,- 

375. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ^278,134,467 ; of personal property, ;$96,420,5I2. State 
taxation (1883), 473^ cents on ;^ioo, ;^2,482,696; county, $1,- 
623,118; city, town and local, ;^ 1,982,832. State debt (1883), 
funded, ;^ 180,394; unfunded, ;^400,000; county, city and local 
indebtedness, ;^ 13,888,025. 

GO VERNMENT—Csipit2i\, Frankfort. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^5,ooo. The other State officers are : Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, four years, salary ;^io per day; Secretary of 
State, four years, ;^i,500; Treasurer, two years, ^2,400; Auditor, 
four years, ;^2,500; Quartermaster and Adjutant-General, four 
years, ;^2,ooo; Superintendent of Public Instruction, four years, 
;^2,500 ; Attorney-General, four years, ;^50O and fees ; Register of 
Lands, four years, ;^2,ooo; Commissioner of Agriculture, two 
years, ;^2,ooo ; Insurance Commissioner, four years, ;^4,ooo ; three 
Railroad Commissioners, two years, each, ;^2,ooo ; State Librarian, 
two years, ;^ 1, 000. 

The Legislature is composed of 38 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years and Representa- 
tives for two years. Their salary is $^ a day and 15 cents mile- 
age. Sessions are held biennially, beginning on last day of 
December. Length of session limited to 60 days, but may be 
extended by consent of both Houses. 

State elections are held on first Monday in August. Congres- 
sional and Presidential elections held on Tuesday after first 
Monday in November. 



RULING BY STATES. 



321 



The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and three As- 
sociates, elected for eight years. Salary of each, ;^5,ooo. 
Representatives in Congress, ii ; Presidential electors, 13. 
POLITICS for twelve years : 





Dem. 


Rep. 


Ind. 


Maj. 


1872 President 


. 100,212 


88,816 


2,374 


11,396 D 


1875 Governor.. . 


. .. 126,976 


90,795 




36,181 D 


1876 President 


.. 160,445 


98,415 




62,030 D 


1877 Treasurer.. . 


•• 96,557 


20,451 




76,106 D 


1879 Governor . . . 


.. 125,799 


81,882 


18,954 


43,9170 


1880 President... 


... 147,999 


104,550 


11,498 


43,449 D 


1883 Governor . . . 


.. 133,615 


89,181 




44,434 1> 




LOUISIANA 








NAME.—So called in honor of Louis XIV. of France. All 
the French territory about the mouth of the Mississippi and 
west of that river was called Louisiana. Popular name, " The 
Creole State." 

ADMISSION.— Rr&ctQd into a Territory, March 3, 1805; 
act of admission dated April 8, 1812 ; admitted, April 30, 
1812. 

AREA. — Square miles, 45,420; acres, 29,068,800; persons to 
a square mile, 20.69. 

POPULATION ^.wA rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

■1810 76,556 

1820 152,923 

1830 215,739 

1840 352,411 



Per cent of 



99-7 
41.0 

63.3 



Census. Pop. 

1850 517,762 

i860 708,002 

1870 726,915 

1880 939,946 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
46.9 

36.7 
2.6 

293 



21 



322 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



[880 by Classes, 



Male 468,754 Native 885,800 

Female. ,471,192 Foreign.... 54,146 

Dwellings 174,867 

Families 192,833 

Voters — Males over 21 216,787 



White 454,954 Chinese, . . .489 

Black 483,655 Indians.. ..848 

Persons to a dwelling. . . 5.38 

" " family 4.87 

Natural militia, 18-44 I73>73i 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Ascension 16,895 

Assumption 17,010 

Avoyelles 16,747 

Bienville 10,442 

Bossier 16,042 

Caddo 26,296 

Calcasieu 12,484 

Caldwell 5,767 

Cameron 2,416 

Carroll 

Catahoula 10.277 

Claiborne 18,837 

Concordia 14,914 

De Soto 15,603 

East Baton Rouge... 19,966 

East Carroll 12,134 

East Feliciana 15,132 

Franklin 6,495 

Grant 6,188 

Iberia 16,676 

Iberville 17,544 

Jackson 5,328 

Jefferson 12,166 

La Fayette 13,235 

La Fouiche 19,113 

Lincoln 11,075 

Livingston 5,258 

Madison 13,906 

Morehouse 14,206 

Natchitoches 19,707 



1870. 


i860. 


",577 


11,484 


13,234 


15,379 


12,926 


13,167 


10,636 


11,000 


12,675 


11,348 


21,714 


12,140 


6,733 


5,928 


4,820 


4,833 


1,591 
10,110 




18,052 


8.475 


11,651 


20,240 


16,848 


9,977 


13,805 


14,962 


13,298 


17,816 


16,046 



13,499 


14.697 


5,078 


6,162 


4,517 
9,042 

12,347 








14,661 


7,646 


9,465 


17,767 


15,372 


10,388 


9,003 


14,719 


14,044 



4,026 

8,600 

9,387 

18,265 



4,431 
14,133 
10,357 

16,699 



Counties. 1880. 

Orleans 216,090 

Ouachita 14,685 

Plaquemines 11,575 

Point Coupee 17,785 

Rapides 23,563 

Red River 8,573 

Richland 8,440 

Sabine 7,344 

Saint Bernard 4,405 

Saint Charles 7, 161 

Saint Helena 7,504 

Saint James 14,714 

Saint John Baptist... 9,686 

Saint Landry 40,004 

Saint Martin 12,663 

Saint Mary 19,891 

Saint Tammany 6,887 

Tangipahoa 9,638 

Tensas 17,815 

Terrebonne i7,957 

Union 13,526 

Vermillion 8,728 

Vernon 5, 160 

Washington 5,190 

Webster 10,005 

West Baton Rouge... 7,667 

West Carroll 2,776 

West Feliciana 12,809 

Winn 5,846 



1870. 


i860. 


191,418 


174,49 J 


11,582 


4,727 


10,552 


8,494 


12,981 


17,718 


18,015 


25,360 


5,110 




6,456 


5,828 


3,553 


4,076 


4,867 


5,297 


5,423 


7,130 


10,152 


11,499 


6,762 


7,930 


25,553 


23,104 


9,370 


12,674 


13,860 


16,816 


5,586 


5,406 


7,928 
12,419 




16,078 


12,451 


12,091 


11,685 


10,389 


4,528 


4,324 


3,330 


4,708 


5,114 


7,312 


10,499 


11,671 


4,954 


6,876 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 9; instructors, 84; students, 1,156. 

Public schools, 1,669; value of school property, $7^2,g02^\ 
teachers, 1,713; teachers' salaries (188 1), ;^374, 127 ; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^498,409 ; expended for same (1881), ;^44 1,484 ; 
school age, 6-18 years; school population (1881), 271,414; 
pupils enrolled ( 1 881), 62,370; average attendance (1881), 45,- 
626; average length of school year in 1 88 1, lOO days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 297,312, being 45.8 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 53,261 ; foreign white, 
5,690; colored, Chinese and Indians, 259,429; total, 318,380, 
being 49.1 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 13 ; others, 99; total, 112. Circulation, 134,830. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 205,306; 
in professional and personal services, 98, ii i ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 29,130; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
30,681. 



RULING BY STATES. 323 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 48,292; total acres in 
farms, 8,273,506 ; improved acres, 2,739,972 ; average size of 
farms, 171 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^58,989,i 17 ; 
value of implements, ;^5,435,525 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, $42,88^,^22. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Butter 916,089 lbs. 

Cheese 7,618 " 

Cotton 508,569 bales. 

Hay 37,029 tons. 

Indian Corn 9,889,689 bush. 

Milk 256,241 galls. 

Oats 229,840 bush. 

Orchard products ^188,604 

Potatoes, Irish 180,115 bush. 



Quantity, 

Potatoes, sweet 1,318,110 bush. 

Rice 23,188,311 lbs. 

Rye 1,013 bush. 

Sugar 171,706 hhds. 

Molasses 11,696,248 galls. 

Tobacco 55>954 lbs. 

Wheat 5,034 bush. 

Wool..' 406,678 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. Number. 

Other cattle 282,418 

Sheep 135*631 

Swine 633,489 



Horses 104,428 

Mules and asses 76,674 

Working oxen 41 ,729 

Milch cows 146,454 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 i$5 12,345,905 

J/^iVW^rrW?^5.— Number of establishments, 1,553; cap- 
ital invested, ;^ II ,462,468 ; hands employed, 12,167; wages 
paid, ;^4,36o,37i ; value of material, ;^i4,442,5o6; value of pro- 
ducts, $24,205,183. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Clothing, men's ^1,079,559 

Machinery 1,554,485 

Lumber, sawed and planed... 2,035,120 
Cotton seed oil and cake 3,739,4^6 



Rice cleaning 1,573,281 

Slaughtering and packing... 1,500,000 
Sugar and molasses refining. 1,483,000 



Total steam and water power in use, 1 1,346 horse-power. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^Wrod^ds in 1883, 1,249 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,231 ; cost, 1^70,242,976 ; total in- 
vestment, ;^70,5 50,5 78. Length of canal and slack-water line, 
28 miles; cost of same, ;^2,030,ooo. Steam craft, 195 ; tonnage, 
53,672; value, ;^4,385,700. Sail craft, 447; tonnage, 31,958; 
value, ;^798,950. Barges and flats, 102; value, ;^ 2 5, 000. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^I22,889,3I5 ; of personal property (1882), ;^58,570,646. 
State taxation (1883), rate 60 cents on ;^ 100, ;^ 1,7 14,984; parish 



324 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

taxation, ;^7io,573; city, town and village, ;^i,9i4,2i9. State 
debt (1882), funded, ;^I3, 195,933 ; unfunded, ;^3,959,ooo; parish* 
city and local indebtedness, ;^ 19,428,3 1 2. 

GO VERNMENT.—C^.^\t3\, Baton Rouge. Governor elected 
for a term of four years. Salary, ;^4,ooo. The other State 
officers, their terms being for four years, are : Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, salary, $^ per day. Secretary of State, ;^ 1,800; Treasurer, 
|)2,ooo; Auditor, ;^2, 500 ; Attorney-General, ^3,000; Adjutant- 
General, ;^2,ooo ; Superintendent of Public Education, ;^2,ooo ; 
Register of Lands, ;^ 1,500; Commissioner of Agriculture, 
;^2,ooo; State Librarian, $900. 

The Legislature is composed of 36 Senators and 98 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for four years. Salary of a Legislator, $^ 
per day and mileage. Legislature meets biennially on second 
Monday in May. Session limited to 60 days. 

State elections are held on Tuesday after first Monday in 
April. Presidential election on Tuesday after first Monday in 
November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four 
associates, appointed by the Governor and Senate for a term of 
twelve years. Salary of each, ;^5,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 6 ; Presidential electors. 8. 
. POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Maj. 

1872 Governor 55,249 72,890 17,641 R. 

1874 Treasurer 68,586 69,544 (Disputed) 958 R. 

1876 President 70,508 75,315 " 4,807 R. 

1876 Governor 71,198 74,624 " 3,426 R. 

1878 Treasurer 77,212 34,064 43,148 D. 

1879 Governor 73,988 43,185 30,803 D. 

1880 President 65,310 31,891 33,419 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



326 




MAINE. 

NAME. — Said to be so called from Maine in France, in honor 
of Henrietta Maria, of England, who was proprietor of that 
province. But the name appears in the <;harter to Gorges and 
Mason, Aug. lO, 1622, two years at least before Henrietta Maria 
was thought of as a wife for Prince Charles. It is therefore 
probable that the title in the charter was the name by which the 
coast was known at the time, either " the Main " or "the mayne- 
land of New England." Popular name, " Lumber or Pine Tree 
State." 

ADMISSION.— Act of admission dated March 3, 1820; 
admission March 15, 1820. 

AREA. — Square miles, 29,895 ; acres, 19,132,800; persons to 
a square mile, 21.71. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 96,540 

1800 I5i»7i9 

1810 228,705 

1820. 298,269 

1830 399,455 



Per cent, of 1 Per cent, of 

increase. j Census. Pop. increase. 

••• ' 1840 501.793 25.6 

571 I 1850 583,169 16.2 

50.7 i860 628,279 7.7 

30.411870 626,915 0.2 dec. 

33-9 I 1880 648,936 3.5 



[880 by Classes. 



Male 324,058 Native 590,053 

Female. ..324,878 Foreign 58,883 

Dwellings 124,959 

Families 141,843 

Voters — Males over 21 187,323 



White 646,852 Chinese 8 

Black 1,451 Indians. . . . 625 

Persons to a dwelling $.1^ 

" " family 4-58 

Natural militia, i8i-44 127,975 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880, 

Androscoggin 45 ,042 

Aroostook 41,700 

Cumberland 86,359 



1870. 
35.866 
29,609 
82.021 



i860. 
29,726 
22,479 
75,591 



Counties. 1880. 

Franklin 18,180 

Hancock 38,129 

Kennebec 53,058 



1870. i860. 

18,807 20,403 

36.495 37,757 

53,203 55,655 



326 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Knox 32,863 

Lincoln 24,821 

Oxford 32,627 

Penobscot 70,476 

Piscataquis 14,872 



1870. 


i860. 


30,823 


32,716 


25,597 


27,860 


33,488 


36,698 


75,150 


72,731 


14,403 


15,032 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Sagadahoc..." 19,272 18,803 21,790 

Somerset 32,333 34,6ii 36,753 

Waldo 32,463 34,522 38,447 

Washington 44,484 43,343 42,534 

York 62,257 60,174 62,107 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 3; instructors, 33; students, 377. 

Public schools, 4,736 ; value of school property, $i,02'j,6o2 ; 
teachers, 4,797; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^952,394; receipts 
for school purposes, ^1,074,554; expended for same (1882), $\,- 
081,834; school age, 4-21; school population (1882), 213,007 ; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 147,988; average attendance (1882), 
111,188; average length of school year in 1882, 117 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 18,181, being 3.5 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 8,775 \ foreign white, 12,- 
983 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 412 ; total, 22,170, being 4.3 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 12; others, 112 ; total, 124. Circulation, 1,215,- 
572. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 82,130; 
in professional and personal services, 47,41 1 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 29,790; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
72,662. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 64,309; total acres in 
farms, 6,552,578; improved acres, 3,484,908; average size of 
farms, 102 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^I02, 357,61 5 ; 
value of implements, ;^4,948,048 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^2 1,945, 489. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 242,185 bush. 

Buckwheat 382,701 ** 

Butter 14,103,966 lbs. 

Cheese 1,167,730 " 

Hay 1,107,788 tons. 

Hops 48,214 lbs. 

Indian Corn 960,633 bush. 

Milk 3,720,783 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 2,265,575 bush. 

Orchard products ^1,112,026 

Potatoes, Irish 7»999>625 bush. 

Rye 26,398 " 

Tobacco 250 lbs. 

Wheat 665,714 bush. 

Wool 2,776,407 lbs. 



RULING BY STATES. 327 



Live- Stock. 



Number. I Number. 

Other cattle 140,527 

Sheep 565,918 

Swine 74.369 



Horses 87,848 

Mules and asses 298 

Working oxen 43>049 

Milch cows 150,845 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^16,499,376 

^^iV^67^^Cr67?^5.— Number of establishments, 4,48 1 ; capi- 
tal invested, ^49,988,171 ; hands employed, 52,954; wages paid, 
;^ 1 3,623,3 18; value of material, ;^5 1,120,708; value of products, 
;^79,829,793. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Boots and shoes $5,823,541 

Clothing, men's 1,130,381 

Cotton goods 13.319.363 

Dyeing and finishing 1,107,616 

Flour and mill products. , . . 3,966,023 

Machinery 2,232,675 

Canned goods ,•.... 1,402,100 

Leather curried and tanned.. 9,713,371 



Lumber sawed and planed.. $8,445,667 

Mixed textiles 1.909,937 

Paper 2,170,321 

Printing and publishing 1,606,098 

Shipbuilding 2,909,846 

Slaughtering and packing. .. 1,093,687 

Sugar refining i ,499,5 1 2 

Woollen goods 6,686,073 



Total steam and water power in use, 100,476 horse-power. 

JffiV/A^C^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $2,999 

Silver 7,200 

Iron ore 6,000 tons 9,000 

Copper ingots 102,500 lbs. 18,040 

Minor minerals 2,000 

Total precious minerals, $10,199. Non-precious. . . . 29,040 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^2a\vod.ds in 1883, 1,123 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,004; cost, ;^39,i62,i4i ; total 
investment, ^39,820,687. Steam craft, 112; tonnage, 16,992; 
value, ;^i, 135,700. Sail craft, 2,559; tonnage, 491,348; value, 
;^ 1 2,283,700. Barges and flats, 155 ; value ;^ 132,000. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal property (1883), ;^265, 978,7 16. State taxation, rate 40 
cents on ;^ioo, ;^i,o63,5io; county and town taxation, ^4,1 18,- 
625. State debt (1883) funded, ;^5,749,ooo; county, city and 
town indebtedness, ;^ 17,724, 100. 

GOVERNMENT.— Csipitdl, Augusta. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^2,ooo. The other State officers are : Secre- 
tary of State (two years), salary, ;^ 1,200; Treasurer (two years), 



328 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

$i,6oo; Attorney-General (two years), ;^i,ooo; Adjutant-General 
(two years), ;^900; Superintendent Common Schools (three years), 
;^i,ooo; Land Agent (four years), ^900; Insurance Commis- 
sioner (three years), ;^900 ; three Railroad Commissioners (three 
years), fees ; Secretary Board Agriculture (four years), ;^6oo ; 
State Librarian (three years), $600. 

The Legislature is composed of 3 1 Senators and 1 5 1 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of each ;^I50 and 
20 cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Wednes- 
day in January. No limit to length of session. 

State elections held every second year on second Monday in 
September. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and seven associates, 
appointed by the Governor for a term of seven years. Salary of 
each, ;^3,cxx). 

Representatives in Congress, 4; Presidential Electors, 6. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem, Others. Maj. 

1872 President 61,422 29,087 32,335 R. 

1873 Governor 45,674 32,816 2,090 12,858 R. 

1874 Governor 53,131 41,734 275 ii,397 1<• 
I875 Governor 57»o85 53,213 3.872 R. 

1876 Governor 75,7lo 60,215 529 15,459 R. 

1876 President 66,300 49,283 663 16,477 R. 

1877 Governor 53,631 42,114 6,076 11,517 R. 

1878 Governor 56,519 27,872 41,404 15,115 R. 

1880 Governor 73,597 73,7^6 463 189 D. 

1880 President 74,052 65,211 4,640 8,841 R. 

1882 Governor 72,724 63,852 1,967 8,872 R. 



RULING BY STATES. 



329 




MARYLAND. 

NAME. — So called in honor of Henrietta Maria, wife of 
Charles I., in his patent to Lord Baltimore. 

^i?J//55/(9iV.— Ratified the Constitution, April 28, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 9,860; acres, 6,310,40x3; persons to 
a square mile, 94.82. 

POPULATION and rate of increase : 



Per cent, of 



Census. Pop. 

1790 319,728 

i8cx) 341,548 

1810 380,546 

1820 407,350 

1830 447,040 



ease. Census. Pop. 

I 1840 470,019 

6.8 ! 1850 583,034 

1 1.4 I i860 687,049 

7-o| 1870 780,894 

9-7 i 1880 934,943 

1880 by Classes. 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

51 
24.0 
17.8 
13-6 
19.7 



Male 462,187 Native 852,137 

Female... 472,756 Foreign.... 82,806 

Dwellings 155,070 

Families 175,3^8 

Voters — Males over 21 232,106 



White 724,693 Chinese.... 5 

Black 210,230 Indians.... 15 

Persons to a dwelling 6.03 

•' " family 5.33 

Natural militia, 18-44 182,609 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Allegany 38,012 

Anne Arundel 28,526 

Baltimore 83,336 

Baltimore City 332,313 

Calvert 10,538 

Caroline 13.766 

Carroll 3-,992 

Cecil 27,ic8 

Charles 18,548 

Dorchester 23,110 

Frederick 50,482 

Garrett 12,175 



1870. 
38,536 
i-4,457 
63.387 
267,354 
9,865 
12,101 
28,619 
25,874 
15,738 
19.458 
47,572 



i860. 
28,348 
23,900 
54,135 
212,418 
10,447 
11,129 

24,533 
23,862 
16,517 
20,461 
46,591 



! Counties. 1880. 

I Harford 28,042 

; Howard 16,140 

Kent 17,605 

; Montgomery 24,759 

Prince George's 26,541 

Queen Anne 19,257 

Saint Mary's 16,934 

Somerset 21,668 

Talbot 19,065 

Washington 38,561 

Wicomico 18,016 

Worcester 19»539 



1870. 
22,605 
14,150 
17,102 
20,563 
21,138 
16,171 
14,944 
18,190 
16,137 
34,712 
15,802 
16,419 



i860. 
23,415 
13,338 
13,267 
18,322 
23,327 
i5",96i 
15,213 
24,992 
14,795 
31,417 

20,661 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, ii; instructors, 162; students, 
1,658. 

Public schools, 2,551 ; value of school property, ;^2,o83,oi3; 
teachers, 3,038; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^i, 146,558; receipts 



330 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

for school purposes, ;^ 1,45 2, 5 57 ; expended for same (1882J, 
;^ 1, 65 1,908; school age, 5-20 years; school population (1882), 
319,201; pupils enrolled (1882), 159,945; average attendance 
(1882), 83,189; average length of school session in 1882, 199 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 1 11, 387, being 16 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write : native white, 36,027 ; foreign white, 
8,289; colored, Chinese and Indians, 90,172; total, 134,488, 
being 19.3 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 15; others, 129; total, 144. Circulation, 387,- 

594. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 90,927 ; 
in professional and personal services, 98,934 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 49,234; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

85.337- 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 40,517; total acres 

in farms, 5,119,831; improved acres, 3,342,700; average size 
of farms, 126 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^i65,503,34i ; 
value of implements, ^5,788,197 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts sold, consumed or on hand, ;$28, 839,281. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 6,097 bush. 

Buckwheat 136,667 " 

Butler 7,485,871 lbs. 

Cheese 17,416 " 

Hay ^ 264,468 tons. 

Indian Corn I5>968,533 bush. 

Milk • 4,722,944 galls. 

Oats 1,794,872 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products ^1,563,188 

Potatoes, Irish 1,497,017 bush. 

" sweet 329,590 " 

Rye 288,067 " 

Tobacco 26,082,147 ^bs. 

Wheat 8,004,864 bush. 

Wool 850,084 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Numbe 



Number. 



Horses 1 1 7,796 

Mules and asses 12,561 

Working oxen 22,246 

Milch cows 122,907 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^^15,865,728 



Other cattle 117,387 

Sheep 171,184 

Swine 335.4o8 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umhGv of establishments, 6,72,7 ; 
capital invested, ;^ 5 8, 742, 3*84; hands employed, 74,945; wages 



RULING BY STATES. 33I 

paid, ;^ 1 8,904,965 ; value of material, ;^66,937,846 ; value of 
products, ;^ 106,780,563. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Boots and shoes. ^2,212,963 

Bakery products 2,275,227 

Clothing, men's 9,579,066 

Confectionery . 1,164,755 

Cotton goods 4,688,714 

Fertilizers 5,770,198 

Flour and mill products 7,954,004 

Machinery 4,454,317 

Canned goods 6,245,297 

Iron and steel 4,470,050 



Leather, tanned and curried. .$1,977,049 
Liquors, malt and distilled.. .. 3,022,696 

Lumber, sawed 1,813,332 

Paper 1,028,591 

Printing and publishing 1,477,164 

Ship-building 1,788,630 

Slaughtering and packing. . . . 3,377,605 

Tin and copper ware. ....... 3,564,994 

Tobacco and cigars 3,262,028 



Total steam and water power in use^ 51,259 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qus^niity : 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous 2,227,884 tons $2,584,455 

Iron ore 57,94° " 118,050 

Zinc ore 672 " 7,200 

I Copper ingots 30,910 lbs. 

Minor minerals I59>303 

Total mineral products $2,869,008 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^Wrod^ds in 1883, 1,153 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,198; cost, $g2,4^^,6io; total 
investment, ;^88,475,I23. Canal and slack-water lines, 199.5 
miles; cost, ^11,290,327. Steam craft, 169; tonnage, 45,967; 
value, ;^3,886,750. Sail craft, 1,645; tonnage, 81,856; value, 
;^ 2, 046,37 5. Canal boats and barges, 471 ; value, ;^3 76,600. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Value of real and personal 
estate (1883), ^466,089,380. State taxation, rate 18.75 cents on 
^100 (1883), ;^2,097,377 ; county, city and town taxation, ;^4,5 76,- 
485. State debt (1883), funded, ;$ii,269,820; county, city and 
town debt, ^3,268,338. 

GO VERNMENT — Capital, Annapolis. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^4,500. The other State officers are : Sec- 
retary of State, four years, salary, ;^2,ooo; Treasurer, two years, 
;^2,500; Comptroller, two years, ^2,500; Attorney-General, four 
years, ^3,000; Adjutant-General, four years, ;^ 1,5 00; Secretary 
Board of Education, two years, ;^ 1,000; Commissioner of Lands, 
four years, ;^2,ooo ; Insurance Commissioner, four years, ;^2,500 ; 
State Librarian, four years, ^1,500. 

The Legislature is composed of 26 Senators and 91 Repre- 



332 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sentatives. Senators elected for four years, Representatives for 
two years. Salary of each, $c, a day and mileage. Legislature 
meets biennially on first Wednesday in January. Session limited 
to 90 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after the first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and seven as- 
sociates, elected by the people for a term of fifteen years. Salary 
of each, ;^3,500. 

Representatives in Congress, 6 ; Presidential electors, 8. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Maj. 

1872 President 67,685 66,760 925 D. 

1875 Governor 85,451 72,530 12,921 D. 

1876 President 91,780 71,981 19,7990. 

1879 Governor 90,77i 68,609 22,162 D. 

1880 President 89,950 73.789 16,161 D. 

1883 Governor 92,698 80,648 1 1,950 D. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 




NAME. — From the Indian equivalent, applied to both the 
bay and tribe. Its meaning is "about, or near, the great, or 
blue, hills." " I havg learned," says Roger Williams, " that the 
Massachusetts were so called from the Blue Hills." Popular 
name, " The Bay State." 

ADMISSION.— RRtifiQd the Constitution, February 6, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 8,040; acres, 5,145,600; persons to a 
square mile, 221.78. 



RULING BY STATES. 



333 



POPULATION ^vi^ rate of increase 



Census. Pop. 

1790 378,787 

1800 422,845 

1810 472,040 

1820 523,159 

1830 610,408 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

II.6 
11.6 
10.8 
16.6 



Per cent, of 

Census. Pop. increase. 

1840 737,699 20.8 

1850 994,514 34-8 

i860 1,231,066 23.7 

1870 1,457,351 18.3 

1880 1,783,085 22.3 



[880 by Classes. 



Male 858,440 Native. . . 1,339,594 

Female. ..924,645 Foreign. . ..443,491 

Dwellings 281,188 

Families 379,7 'o 

Voters — Males over 21 502,648 



WTiite.. ..1,763,782 Chinese 237 

Black 18,697 Indians 369 

Persons to a dwelling 6.34 

" " family 4.70 

Natural militia, 18-44 373,284 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Barnstable 31,897 

Berkshire 69,032 

Bristol 139,040 

Dukes 4,300 

Essex 244,535 

Franklin 36,001 

Hampden 104,142 



1870. 
32,774 
64,827 
102,886 
3,787 
200,843 
32,635 
78,409 



i860. 

35,990 
55,120 

93,794 
4,403 
165,611 
31,434 
57,366 



Counties. 1880. 

Hampshire 47,232 

Middlesex 317,830 

Nantucket 3,727 

Norfolk 96,507 

Plymouth 74,oi8 

Suffolk 387,927 

Worcester 226,897 



1870. 


i860. 


44,388 


37.823 


274,353 


216,354 


4,123 


6,094 


89,443 


109,950 


65,365 


64,768 


270,802 


192,700 


192,716 


159,659 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 7; instructors, 157; students, 2,- 

lOI. 

Public schools, 6,604; value of school property, ^21,660,392; 
teachers, 7,336; teachers' salaries (1882), ^4,144,722; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^4,696,6i2; expended for same (1882), $^,- 
881,124; school age, 5-15 years; school population (1882), 
321,377; pupils enrolled (1882), 330,421; average attendance, 
(1882), 235,739; average length of school year in 1882, 178 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 75,635, being 5.3 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of sige. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 6,933; foreign white, 
^3j7^S ) colored, Chinese and Indians, 2,322 ; total, 92,980, being 
6.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 39; others, 393; total, 432. Circulation, i,- 
938,818. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 64,973; 
in professional and personal service, 170,160; in trade and trans- 
portation, 115,376; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
370,265. 



334 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 38,406; total acres in 
farms, 3,359,079; improved acres, 2,128,311; average size of 
farms, 87 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 146, 197,41 5 ; 
value of implements, ^^5, 134,5 37 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^24, 160,881. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 80,128 bush. 

Buckwheat ,67,117 " 

Butter 9*655,587 lbs. 

Cheese 829,528 " 

Hay 684,679 tons. 

Hops 9.895 lbs. 

Indian Corn 1,797,768 bush. 

Milk 29,662,953 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 645.159 bush. 

Orchard products ^1,005,303 

Potatoes, Irish 3,070,380 Inish. 

" sweet 450 '* 

Rye 213,716 '• 

Tobacco 5,369,436 lbs. 

Wheat 15,768 bush. 

Wool 299,089 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 59,629 

Mules and asses 243 

Working oxen 14,57 1 

Milch cows 150,435 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 

Other cattle 96,045 

Sheep. 67,979 

Swine 80,123 



1880 ^^12,957,004 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umh^v of establishments, 14,352; 
capital invested, ;^303, 806,185 ; hands employed, 352,255 ; wages 
paid, ;^I28,3I5,362 ; value of material, ;^386,972,655 ; value of 
products, ;^63i, 135,284. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements. . . . $1,670,242 
Bookbinding and blanks.. . . 1,360,577 

Boots and shoes (all) 101,162,009 

Bakery products 4.942,769 

Carpets 6,337,629 

Carriages and wagons 4,048,141 

Clothing, men's 17,902,662 

Confectionery 2,281,850 

Cordage 2,995,395 

Cotton goods 74,780,835 

Cutlery 2,133,654 

Dyeing and finishing. 9,482,939 

Flour and mill products. . . . 8,774,049 

Machinery 23,935,604 

Furniture 6,041,618 

Nails and spikes 3,126,275 

Iron and steel 10,288,921 

Total steam and water power in use, 309,759 horse-power. 



Jewelry 

Leather, all kinds 

Liquors, malt and distilled. 
Lumber sawed and planed. 

Mixed textiles 

Paper 

Printing and jiublishing. . . 

Rubber elastics 

Silk goods. 

Slaughterin'T and packing. . . 

Soap and candles 

Straw goods 

Sugar and molasses refined. 

Wire 

Woollen goods 

Worsted goods 



. $4,265,525 

. 38,771,113 

. 6,216,618 

. 4,317,555 

. 13,043,829 

. 15,188,196 

. 7,757,260 

. 4,206,465 

. 3,764,260 

. 22,951,782 

. 4,489,555 

. 6,898,628 

. 22,880,439 

. 4,539,399 

. 45,099,203 

. 10,466,016 



RULING BY STATES, i. 335 

MINING.— Q\x2ir\t\tY : 

Value. 

Iron ore 62,637 tons ^226,130 

Minor minerals '. 101,970 

Total mineral product #328, 100 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— '^^.Wrod.ds in 1883, 2,263 
miles of line; miles operated, 2,493; cost, 1^153,970,932; total 
investment, ;^I9I,24I,I32. Steam craft, 180; tonnage, 48,918; 
value, ;^3, 266,400. Sail craft, 2,136; tonnage, 378,333; value, 
;^9,458,325. Barges and flats, 55; value, ;^64,ooo. 

FINANCIAL CONBITION— Assessed value of real estate, 
;^ 1, 262,698, 224; of personal property, ;^5 15,682,475. State taxa- 
tion (1882), rate 3.5 cents on ;^ioo, ;^ 2, 902, 5 46 ; county taxation, 
;^i, 125,901 ; city, town and local, 1^21,699,794. State debt (1883) 
funded, ;^32,5 11,681 ; amount in sinking fund, $i6,g44,26^; net 
State debt, ;^i 5,567,418 ; county, city and town indebtedness, 
;^7i, 124,435. 

GOVERNMENT.— Capital, Boston. Governor elected for 
one year. Salary, ;^4,ooo. The other State officers — chosen 
for one year, except Insurance and Railroad Commissioners 
whose terms are three years — are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, 
;^2,ooo; Secretary of State, ;^2, 500; Treasurer, ;^4,ooo; Auditor, 
;^2,500; Attorney-General, ;^4,ooo; Adjutant-General, ;^2,500; 
Secretary Board Education, ;^2,000 ; Secretary Board Agri- 
culture, ;^2,500; Insurance Commissioner, ;^3,ooo; three Rail- 
road Commissioners, one at ;^4,ooo and two at ;^3,500; State 
Librarian, ;^2,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 40 Senators and 240 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for one year. Salary of a Legislator, ;^500 
a year. Legislature meets annually on first Wednesday in Janu- 
ary. No limit to length of session. 

State elections held annually on same date as Congressional 
and Presidential elections, viz., Tuesday after first Monday in 
November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and six asso- 
ciates, appointed by the Governor and Council, for life or during 
good behavior. Salary of Chief Justice, ;^6,500; of associates, 
$6,000 each. 



336 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Representatives in Congress, 12; Presidential electors, 14. 
POLITICS for twelve years : 



Rep. Dem. 

1872 President I33»472 59,260 

1873 Governor 72,183 59»36o 

1874 " 89,345 96,376 

1875 " 83,639 78,333 

1876 President 150,063 108,777 

1876 Governor 137,605 106,850 

1877 " 91,255 73.185 

1878 " 134,725 10,162 

1879 " 122,751 9,989 

1 880 President 1 64,205 1 1 1 ,960 

1880 Governor 164,825 111,410 

1881 " 96,609 54,586 

1882 " 1 19.997 133.946 

1883 " 160,092 150,228 



Lab. 



316 



16,354 
109,435 
109,149 

4,548 
4,864 
4,889 



Tem. 



9,124 

779 
12,274 

3,552 

1,913 

1,645 
682 

1,059 



2,335 
1,881 



Maj. 
74,212 R. 
12,823 R- 

7,031 D. 

5,306 R. 
41,286 R. 

30,755 R- 

18,070 R. 
25,290 R. 
13,602 R. 

52,245 R. 
53,415 R. 

42,023 R. 

13,949 D. 

9,864 R. 



MICHIGAN. 




NAME. — So called from the lake, and that from the Indian 
word meaning " a weir of fish." By others it is coupled with 
Mitcha-gan, Chippewa for " great lake." Popular name, " The 
Wolverine State." 

ADMISSION.— Ex^zt^d. into a Territory, Jan. ii, 1805. Act 
of admission and actual admission, Jan. 26, 1837. 

AREA. — Square miles, 57,430; acres, 36,755,200; persons to 
a square mile, 28.50. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

iSio 4,762 

1820 8,765 

1830 31,639 

1840 212,267 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

84.0 
260.9 
570.9 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1850 397,654 87.3 

i860 749,113 88.3 

1870 1,184,059 58.0' 

1880 1,636,937 38.2 



RULING BY STATES. 



33'7 



1880 by Classes. 



Males 862,355 Native 1,248,429 

Females. .774,582 Foreign. . . 388,508 

Dwellings 321,514 

Families 33^,973 

Voters — Males over 21 467,687 



White. .-1,614,560 Chinese 28 

Black... 15,100 Indians.. , .7,249 

Persons to a dwelling 5.09 

" " family 4.86 

Natural militia, 1 8-44 37 1 , 1 40 



By Counties for three Censtcses. 



Counties. 1880, 

Alcona 3>io7 

Allegan 37>8i5 

Alpena 8,789 

Antrim 5*237 

Baraga 1,804 

Barry 25,317 

Bay 38,081 

Benzie 3,433 

Berrien 36,785 

Branch 27,941 

Brown (Now 

Calhoun 38,452 

Cass 22,009 

Charlevoix 5, 115 

Cheboygan 6,524 

Chippewa ^ 5,248 

Clare 4,187 

Clinton 28,100 

Crawford 1,159 

Delta 6,812 

Eaton 31,225 

Emmett 6,639 

Genesee 39,220 

Gladwin 1,127 

Grand Traverse 8,422 

Gratiot 21,936 

Hillsdale 32,723 

Houghton 22,473 

Huron 20,089 

Ingham 33,676 

Ionia 33.872 

Iosco 6,873 

Iowa (Now 

Isabella 12,159 

Isle Royale 55 

Jackson 42,031 

Kalamazoo 34,342 

Kalkaska 2,937 

Kent 73,253 

Keweenaw 4,270 

Lake 3,233 



1870. 
696 

32,105 
2,756 
1,985 

22,199 
15,900 
2,184 
35.104 
26,226 



i860. 

185 

16,087 

290 

179 

I's.SsS 

3,164 

22,378 
20,981 



in Wisconsin.) 
36,569 29,564 
21,094 17,721 

1,724 

2,196 



366 
22,845 

2,542 
25,171 

1,211 
33,900 

4,443 
n,8io 
31,684 

13,879 
9,049 
25,268 
27,681 



517 
1,603 



13,916 



3.163 
Wisconsin.) 



1,172 

16,476 

1,149 

22,498 

14 

1,286 

4,042 

25,675 

9.234 

3.165 

17,435 

16,682 

175 



Counties. 1880. 

Lapeer 30,138 

Leelanaw 6,253 

Lenawee 48,343 

Livingston 22,251 

Mackinac 2,902 

Macomb 31,627 

Manistee 12,532 

Manitou i,334 

Marquette 25,394 

Mason 10,065 

Mecosta i3,973 

Menominee 11,987 

Midland 6,893 

Missaukee i,553 

Monroe 33,'624 

Montcalm 33,148 

Montmorency , 



4,"3 


1,443 


36,047 
32,054 

424 
50,403 
4,205 

548 


26,671 
24,646 


30,716 





Muskegon 26,586 

Newaygo 14,688 

Oakland 41, 537 

Oceana 11,699 

Ogemaw 1,914 

Ontonagon 2,565 

Osceola 10,777 

Oscoda 467 

Otsego 1,974 

I Ottawa 33,126 

; Presque Isle 3,113 

I Roscommon i,459 

Sa'.nt Clair 46,197 

i Saint Joseph 26,626 

j Saginaw 59.095 

; Sanilac 26,341 

Schoolcraft 1,575 

\ Shiawassee 27,059 

Tuscola 25,738 

j Van Buren 30,807 

j Washtenaw 41,848 

I Wayne 166,444 

Wexford 6,815 



1870. 


i860. 


21,345 


14.754 


4,576 


2,158 


45,595 


38,112 


19,336 


16,851 


1,716 


1,938 


27,616 


22,843 


6,074 


975 


891 


1,042 


15,033 


3,821 


3,263 


831 


5,642 
1,791 
3,285 


970 


787 


130 





27,483 


21,59-1 


13,629 


3.96b 


(To Alpena. 




14,894 


3,947 


7.294 


2,760 


40,867 


38,261 


7,222 


1,816 


12 




. 2,845 


4.568 


2,093 


27 


70 






26,651 


13,215 


355 


26 


36,661 


26,604 


26,275 


21,262 


39,097 


12,693 


14,562 


12,349 


20,858 


13.714 


4.8(ib 


28,829 


15,224 


41,434 


35,580 


119,038 


75,547 


650 





EDUCATION. — Colleges, 9; instructors, 141; students, 2,- 
701. 

Public schools, 8,608 ; value of school property, $8,982,- 
344; teachers, 8,608; teachers' salaries (1882), ;$2, 193,267; re- 
ceipts for school purposes, ;^3,792,740; expended for same (1882), 
;^3,789,29i ; school age, 5-20 years; school population (1882), 
53S»356; pupils enrolled (1882), 385,504; average attendance 
(1880), 263,775; average length of school session in 1882, 148 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 47,112, being 3.8 
22 



338 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 19,981 ; foreign white, 
38,951; colored, Chinese and Indians, 4,791; total, 63,723, 
being 5.2 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 33 ; others, 436; total, 469. Circulation, 602,- 

749- 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 240,319; 

in professional and personal service, 143,249 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 54,723 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

130,913- 
AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 154,008; total acres 

in farms, 13,807,240; improved acres, 8.296.862: average size 

of farms, 90 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^499,I03,- 

181 ; value of implements, ;^i9,4i9.36o ; total value of all farm 

products, sold, consumed or on hand, $91,159,858. 



Principal Products. 

QjLiantity. 

Barley 1,204,316 bush. 

Buckwheat 413,062 " 

Butter 38,821,890 lbs. 

Cheese 440,540 " 

Hay 1 ,393,888 tons. 

Hops 266,010 lbs. 

Indian Corn 32,461,452 bush. 

Milk 7,898,273 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 18,190,793 bush. 

Orchard products. . . . $2,760,677 

Potatoes, Irish 10,924,111 bush. 

" sweet 4*904 " 

Rye 294,918 " 

Tobacco 83,969 lbs. 

Wheat 35.532,543 bush. 

Wool 11,858,497 lbs. 



■Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 378,778 

Mules and asses 5*083 

"Working oxen 40,393 

Milch cows 384,578 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 $55,720,113 



Number. 

Other cattle 466,660 

Sheep 2,189,389 

Swine 964,07 1 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umhQv of establishments, 8,873 ; capi- 
tal invested, ^2,930,959; hands employed, 77,591 ; wages paid, 
1525,313,682; value of material, ;^92,900,269 ; value of products, 
;^i5o,7i5,025. 

The principal products are : 

Agricultural implements $3,102,638 Flour and mill products. .. .$23,546,875 

Carriages and wagons 2,741,143 Machinery 5,271,142 

Cars 1,466,256 Furniture 3,514,176 

Clothing, men's 3,029,478 Iron and steel 4>59i>6i3 

Cooperage 1,584,469 Leather, tanned and curried. . 3,026,585 



RULING BY STATES. 339 

Liquors, malt ;^2, 184,392 I Ship building $2,034,636 

Lumber, planed and sawed. .53,525,977 Slaughtering and packing 2,065,634 

Salt 2,271,913 Tobacco and cigars 3,666,235 

Sashes and doors 2,240,402 | 

Total steam and water power in use, 164,747 horse-power. 
JffiV/iV^a— Quantity : 

Value. 

Silver $25,858 

Coal, bituminous 100,800 tons 224,500 

Iron ore 1,837,712 " 6,034,648 

Copper ingots 45,830,262 lbs. 7,979,232 

Minor minerals 4I>057 

Total value of mineral products ^14,305,295 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— R.2\\vo2.ds in 1883, 4,341 
miles of line; miles operated, Z^7^7 \ cost, ;^ 170,042,764; total 
investment, ;^ 170,41 2,7 17. Length of canal lines, 3.14 miles; 
cost, ;^7,425,300. Steam craft, 422; tonnage, 67,093; value, 
;^4,5 50,725. Sail craft, 470; tonnage, 62,105 ; value, ;^i, 5 52,625. 
Barges and flats, 206 ; value, ;^ 136,000. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— AssQS5Qd value of real and 
personal property, 1883, ;^ 8 10,000,000. State taxation (1883), 
rate 12^ cents on ;^ioo, ;^ 1,02 1,091 ; county taxation, ;^ 1,804,- 
512; city, town and township, ^5,139,877. State debt (1883), 
all funded, ;^309, 1 50 ; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^8,803,- 
144. 

GOVERNMENT— C2.^\i2\, Lansing. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^ 1,000. The other State officers, all elected 
or selected for two years, are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ^3 
a day; Secretary of State, ;^8oo; Treasurer, ;^ 1,000; Auditor- 
General, ;^2,ooo; Attorney-General, ;^8oo; Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, ;^ 1,000; Adjutant-General (appointed), ;^i,000; 
Secretary Board of Agriculture (appointed), ;^i,500; Commis- 
sioner of Lands, ;^8oo; Insurance Commissioner (appointed), 
;^2,ooo; Railroad Commissioner (appointed), ;^2,500; Immigra- 
tion Commissioner (appointed), ;^2,ooo ; State Librarian (ap- 
pointed), ;^i,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 32 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $2> 
a day and ten cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on 
first Wednesday in January. No limit to length of session. 



340 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and three as- 
sociates, elected by the people for a term of eight years. Salary 
of each, ;^4,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, ii ; Presidential electors, 13. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Tern. Grbk. Maj. 

1872 President 136,202 79,088 1,271 55,843 R. 

1874 Governor 111,519 105,550 3,937 •••• 2,032 R. 

1876 " 165,926 142,492 870 8,297 23,434 R. 

1876 President 166,534 141,095 .... .... 25,439 R. 

1878 GoverHor 126,399 79,682 74,333 46,717 R. 

1880 " 177,954 137,691 .... 35,032 40,263 R. 

1880 President 185,341 131.597 942 34,895 53,744 R. 

1882 Governor 149,581 154,404 6,349 .... 4,823 D. 



MINNESOTA. 




NAME. — From the river, meaning " cloudy, or colored, 
water," in the Indian language. 

ADMISSION.— Y.xqqX^^ into a Territory, March 3, 1849; 
act of admission dated May 4, 1858; actual admission. May 
II, 1858. 

AREA. — Square miles, 79,205; acres, 50,691,200; persons 
to a square mile, 9.86. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Per cent o<^ 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1850 6,077 



Per cent of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1870 439,706 155-6 



i86o 172,023 2,730.7 1880 780,773 77.5 



RULING BY STATES. 



341 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 419.149 Native 513,097 

Female. .361,624 Foreign... 267,676 

Dwellings 136,458 

Families I43>374 

Voters — Males over 21 213,485 



White 776,884 Chinese 25 

Black 1 ,564 Indians 2,300 

Persons to a dwelling 5.72 

«' " family 5.45 

Natural militia, 18-44 174,681 



By Cotcnties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Aitken 366 

AiK)ka 7,108 

Becker 5,218 

Beltrami 10 

Benton 3,012 

Big Stone 3,688 

Blue Earth 22,889 

Breckenridge 

Brown 12,018 

Buchanan 

Carleton 1,230 

Carver 14,140 

Cass 486 

Chippewa 5,408 

Chisago 7,982 

Clay 5,887 

Cook 65 

Cottonwood 5,533 

Crow Wing 2,319 

Dakota 17,391 

Dodge 11,344 

Douglas 9,130 

Faribault 13,016 

Fillmore 28,162 

Freeborn 16,069 

Goodhue 29,651 

Grant 3,004 

Hennepin 67,013 

Houston 16,332 

Isanti 5,063 

Itasca 124 

Jackson 4,806 

Kannabec 505 

Kandiyohi 10,159 

Kittson 905 

Lac-qui-parle 4891 

Lake io6 

Le Sueur 16,103 

Lincoln 2,945 

Lyon 6,257 

McLeod 12,342 

Mankahta 

Manomin 



1870. 

178 

3»940 

308 

80 

1,558 

24 

17.302 



6,396 

'"286 

11,586 

380 

1,467 

4,358 

92 



i860. 

2 

2,106 

386 

627 

4,803 
79 

2,339 
26 

51 

5,106 

150 

1,743 



534 


12 


200 


269 


16,312 


9.093 


8,598 


3,797 


4,239 


195 


9,940 


1,335 


24,887 


13,542 


10,578 


3,367 


22,618 


8,977 


340 





31,566 


12,849 


14,936 


6.645 


2,035 


284 




51 


1,825 


181 


93 


30 


1,760 


76 


64 


1,612 


145 




135 


248 


11,607 


5,318 



5,643 



1,286 

136 



Counties. 1880. 

Marshall 992 

Martin 5,249 

Meeker ii,739 

Mille Lacs 1,501 

Monogalia 

Morrison 5,875 

Mower 16,799 

Murray 3,604 

Nicollet 12,333 

Nobles 4,435 

Olmsted 21,543 

Otter Tail 18,675 

Pierce 

Pine 1,365 

Pipe Stone 2,092 

Polk 11,433 

Pope 5,874 

Ramsey 45,890 

Redwood 5,375 

Renville 10,791 

Rice 22,481 

Rock 3,669 

Saint Louis 4,504 

Scott 13,516 

Sherburne 3,855 

Sibley .10,637 

Stearns .21,956 

Steele 12,460 

Stevens 3,9" 

Swift ? 7,473 

Todd 6,133 

Traverse 1,507 

Wabasha 18,206 

Wadena 2,080 

Wahuata 

Waseca 12,385 

Washington 19.563 

Watonwan 5,104 

Wilkin 1,906 

Winona 27,197 

Wright 18,104 

Yellow Medicine 5,884 



1870. 



i860. 



3^867 


151 


6,090 


928 


1,109 


73 


3,i6i 


350 


1,681 


618 


10,447 


3,217 


209 


29 


8,362 


3,773 


117 


35 


19,793 
1,968 


9^524 


240 




II 


648 


92 





23 




240 


2,691 




23,085 


12,150 


1,829 





3,219 


245 


16,083 


7,543 


138 




4,561 


406 


11,042 


4>595 


2,050 


723 


6,725 


3,609 


14,206 


4,505 


8,271 


2,863 


174 





2,036 

15,859 
6 

7,854 

11,809 

2,426 

295 
22,319 
9.457 



430 
7,228 



2,6or 
6,123 

40 
9,208 
3,729 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 5 ; instructors, 75; students, 981. 

Public schools, 4,784; value of school property, ;^3,46o,458 ; 
teachers, 5,100; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^i,054,523; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^2,oi2,987; expended for same (1882), 
;$2, 159,435; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 
315,948; pupils enrolled (1882), 196,238; average winter at- 
tendance (1882), 97,532 ; average length of winter term in 1882, 
98 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 20,551, being 3.7 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 



342 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC, 



who cannot write: native white, 5,671 ; foreign white, 27,835 ; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 1,040; total, 34,546, being 6.2 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 10; others, 214; total, 224. Circulation, 221,- 
674. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 131,535 ; 
in professional and personal services, 59,452; in trade and 
transportation, 24,349 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
39,7^9. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 92,386; total acres in 
farms, 13,403,019; improved acres, 7,246,693 ; average size of 
farms, 145 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 1 93,724,260; 
value of implements, ;^ 1 3,089,783 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold consumed or on hand, ^^49,468,951. 

Principal Products. 
Quantity. 



Barley 2,972,965 bush. 

Backwheat 41,756 " 

Butter 19,161,385 lbs. 

Cheese 523,138 " 

Hay 1,636,912 tons. 

Hops 10,928 lbs. 

Indian Corn 14,831 ,741 bush. 

Milk 1,504,407 gal. 



Quantity. 

Oats 23,382,158 bush. 

Orchard products ^121,648 

Potatoes, Irish 5,184,676 bush. 

Rye 215,245 bush. 

Tobacco 69,922 lbs. 

Wheat 34,601,030 bush. 

Wool 1,352,124 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 257,282 

Mules and asses 9,oi9 

Working oxen , 36,344 

Milch cows 275,545 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 

Other cattle 347,161 

Sheep 267,598 

Swine 381,415 



880 ^5^31,904,821 

J/^iVOT^^rr^7?^5.— Number of establishments, 3,493 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^3 1,004,811 ; hands employed, 21,247; wages paid, 
^8,613,094; value of materials, ;^55,66o,68i ; value of products, 
^76,065,198. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements. . . . ^2,340,288 

Clothing, men's 1,662,855 

Cooperage 1,007,643 

Flour mill products 41,519,004 

Machinery . , 1,606,518 

Total steam and water power in use, 53,880 horse-power. 



Liquors, malt ^1,153,122 

Lumber sawed and planed. . 8,023,415 

Printing and publishing .... 1,043,664 

Sashes and doors 1,344,618 



RULING BY STATES. 343 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K2i\\ro2ids in 1883, 4,528 
miles of line; miles operated, 3,734; cost, ;^237,6o7,3o8 ; total 
investment, ;^2 5 8,949,909. Steam craft, 61 ; tonnage, 5,119; 
value, ;^273,270. Barges, 32; value, ;^ 12,800. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^ 244,043, 847 ; of personal property, ;^67,I59,5 88. State 
taxation (1883), rate 18.5 cents on ^100, ;^78i,762 ; county taxa- 
tion, ;^l,25 1,888; city and town, ;^ 1, 7 3 5, 420. State debt (1883) 
all funded, ^4,506,000 ; county, city and town debt, ;^5,9i 1,064. 

GOVERNMENT— CapitSil St. Paul. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ^3,800. The other State officers — all of 
whose terms are two years, except Auditor, three years — are, 
Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^6oo; Secretary of State, ;^ 1,800; 
Treasurer, ;^3,500; Auditor, ^3,000; Attorney-General, ;^2,ooo; 
Superintendent Pubhc Instruction, ;^2,500; Adjutant-General, 
;^i,500; Public Examiner, ;^3,ooo; Insurance Commissioner, $2- 
000; Commissioner Statistics, ^2,000 ; Railroad Commissioner, 
;^3,ooo; State Librarian, ;^2,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 47 Senators and 103 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years ; Representatives 
for two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^5 a day and 1 5 cents 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on Tuesday after first 
Monday in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salary ;^4,500; 
and four Associate Justices, salary of each, ;^4,ooo ; all elected 
by the people for a term of seven years. 

Representatives in Congress, 5 ; Presidential electors, 7. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 





Rep. 


Dem. 


Tern. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 
20,498 R. 


1872 President.. . 


•• 55.709 


35,2" 






1873 Governor. . , 


. . 40,781 


35,260 


1,050 




5,521 R. 


1875 " ... 


.. 47,053 


35,168 


1,484 




11,885 R, 


1876 President.. . 


.. 72,962 


48,779 




2,389 


24,163 R. 


1877 Governor.. . 


.. 57,644 


40,215 






17,429 R- 


1879 


.. 56,918 


41,583 


2,867 


4,264 


15,335 K. 


1880 President.. . 


• • 93,903 


53,315 


286 


3,267 


40,588 R. 


1 88 1 Governor.. . 


.. 65,025 


37,168 


708 


2,676 


27,857 R. 


1883 


.. 72,404 


57,859 






14,545 R 



344 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC 




MISSISSIPPI. 

NAME. — From the river Mississippi, commonly called the 
" Father of Waters." But the Indian thought was, according to 
some, ** the great and long water;" according to others, "the 
whole river;" that is, a river formed by a union of many, the 
drainage river of a system. Popular name *' The Bayou State." 

ADMISSION,— Ex^oX^il into a Territory, April 7, 1798. 
Act of admission, April 10, 1 8 17. Actual admission, same date. 

AREA. — Square miles, 46,340; acres, 29,657,600; persons to 
a square mile, 24.42. 

POPULATION diwd rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1800 8,850 

1810 40,352 

1820 75,448 

1830 136,621 

1840 375.651 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

355-9 
86.9 
81.0 

174.9 



Census. Pop. 

1850 606,526 

i860 791,305 

1870 827,922 

1880 1,131.597 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
61.4 

30.4 

4.6 

36.6 



1880 by Classes. 

Male 567,177 Native. .1,122,388 White. . .479,398 Chinese. 

Female. . . 564,420 Foreign. . . 9,209 Black . . . 650,291 Indians. . 

Dwellings 208,297 Persons to a dwelling 5.43 

Families 215,055 " " family 5.26 

Voters — Males over 21 238,532 Natural militia, 18-44 203,080 



51 
1.857 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 22,649 

Alcorn 14,272 

Amite 14,004 

Attala 19,988 

Baldwin 

Benton 11,023 

Bolivar 18,652 

Calhoun 13,492 

Carroll 17, 795 

Chickasaw 17,905 

Choctaw 9,036 

Claiborne 16.763 

Clarke 15,021 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



1870. 
19,084 
10,431 
10,973 
14,776 



9,732 
10,561 
21,047 
19,899 
16,988 
13,386 

7,505 



i860. 
20,165 



12,336 
14,169 



10,471 
9>5i8 
22,035 
16,426 
15,722 
15,679 
10,771 



Counties. 1880. 

Clay 17,367 

Coahoma 13,568 

Copiah 27,552 

Covington 5>993 

De Soto 22,924 

Franklin 9,729 

Greene 3, 194 

Grenada 12,071 

Hancock 6,439 

Harrison 7,895 

Hinds 43,958 

Holmes 27,164 

Issaquena 10,004 



1870. 



i860. 



7,144 


6,6«6 


20,608 


15,398 


4,753 


4.408 


32,021 


23,336 


7.498 


8,265 


2,038 


2,232 


10,571 




4,239 


3,139 


5,795 


4,819 


30,488 


31,339 


19.370 


17,791 


6,887 


7.831 



RULING BY STATES. 



345 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Itawamba 10,663 

Jackson 7,607 

Jasper 12,126 

Jefferson I7j3I4 

Jones 3,828 

Keraper 15,719 

La Fayette 21,671 

Lauderdale 21,501 

Lawrence 9,420 

Leake 13,146 

Lee 20,470 

Le Flore 10,246 

Lincoln.. 13, 547 

Lowndes 28,244 

Madison 25,866 

Marion 6,901 

Marshall 29,330 

Monroe 28,553 

Montgomery 13,348 

Neshoba 8,741 

Newton 13.436 

Noxubee 29,874 

Oktibbeha 15,978 

Panola 28,352 

Perry 3.427 



1870. 


i860. 


7,812 


17,695 


4,362 


4,122 


10,884 


11,007 


13,848 


15,349 


3,313 


3,323 


12,920 


11,682 


18,802 


16,125 


13,462 


13,313 


6,720 


9,213 


8,496 


9,324 


15,955 





10,184 




30,502 


23,625 


20,948 


23,382 


4,211 


4,686 


29,416 


28,823 


22,631 


21,283 


7,439 


8,343 


10,067 


9,661 


20,905 


20,667 


14,891 


12,977 


20,754 


13,794 


2,694 


2,606 



Counties. 1880. 

Pike 16,688 

Pontotoc 13,858 

Prentiss 12,158 

Quitman 1,407 

Rankin 16,752 

Scott 10,845 

Sharkey 6,306 

Simpson 8,008 

Smith 8,088 

Sumner 9,534 

Sunflower 4, 661 

Tallahatchie 10,926 

Tate 18,721 

Tippah 12,867 

Tishomingo 8,774 

Tunica 8,461 

Union 10,030 

Warren 31,238 

Washington 25,367 

Wayne 8,741 

Wilkinson 17,^15 

Winston 10,087 

Yalobusha 15,649 

Yazoo 33,845 



1870. 


i860. 


11,303 


11,135 


12,525 


22,113 


9,348 





12,977 


*3,635 


7,847 


8,139 


5,718 


6,080 


7,126 


7,638 


5,015 


5.019 


7,852 


7,890 


20,727 


22,550 


7,350 


24,149 


5,358 


4,366 


26,769 


20,696 


14,569 


15,679 


4,206 


3,691 


12,705 


15933 


8,984 


9,811 


13,''^5 


16,952 


17,2 


22,373 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 3 ; instructors, 25 ; students, 724. 

Public schools, 5,166; value of school property, ;^553,6io; 
teachers, 5,473; teachers' salaries (1881), $644,7,^2; receipts 
for school purposes, ^742,765; expended for same (1881), 
;^757,758; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1881), 
444,131; pupils enrolled (1881), 237,288; average attendance 
(1881), 136,315 ; average length of school session in 1881, 75.5 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 315,612, being 41.9 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 52,910; foreign white, 
538; colored, Chinese and Indians, 319,753; total, 373,201, 
being 49.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 5; others, 118; total, 123. Circulation, 87,904. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 339,938; 
in professional and personal service, 49,448 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 12,975 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

13,145- 
AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 101,772; total acres in 

farms, 15,855,462; improved acres, 5,216,937; average size of 
farms, 156 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^92, 844,915 ; 
value of implements, ^4,885,636; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^63, 70 1,844. 



346 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Principal Products 

Quantity. 

Barley 348 bush. 

Butter 7,454,657 lbs. 

Cheese 4,239 " 

Cotton 963,1 1 1 bales, 

Hay 8,894 tons. 

Indian Corn 21,340,800 bush. 

Milk 427,492 galls. 

Oats 1,959,620 bush. 

Orchard products ^378,145 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 303,821 bush. 

" sweet 3,610,660 " 

Rice 1,718,951 lbs. 

Rye 5,134 bush. 

Sug. & mol., 18 hhds. . 536,625 galls. 

Tobacco 414,663 lbs. 

Wheat 218,890 bush. 

Wool 734,643 l^s. 



Live-Stock. 



Number, 

Horses ii 2,309 

Mules and asses 129,778 

Working oxen 61 ,705 

Milch cows 268,178 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 

Other cattle. . 387,452 

Sheep 287,694 

Swine 1,151,818 



880 $24,285,717 

MANUFACTURES.— ^wmh^x of establishments, 1,479; cap- 
ital invested, $\,'j 2] <ooo \ hands employed, 5,827 ; wages paid, 
$1,192,645; value of material, $4,667,183; value of products, 
$7,518,302. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Cotton goods $691,415 

Flour and mill products 1,762,523 

Lumber, sawed 1,920,335 



Oil and oil cake $560,363 

Woollen goods 299,605 



Total steam and water power in use, 18,450 horse-power. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITILS.—K^\\vo3.ds in 1883, 491 
miles of line; miles operated, 413; cost, $17,670,929; total 
investment, $17,674,544. Steam craft, 40 ; tonnage, 3,657 ; value, 
$204,450. Sail craft, 119; tonnage, 2,970; value, $74,225. 
Barges and flats, 42 ; value, $8,000. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), $87,596,173; of personal property, $39,158,754- i^^tate 
taxation (1883), rate 22 cents on $100, $348,869; county taxa- 
tion, $1,595,444; city and town, $235,661. State debt (1882), 
net funded, $867,722 ; county, city and town debt, $1,633,705. 

GOVERNMENT— Csipital, Jackson. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, $4,000. The other State officers, all elected 
for four years, except Commissioner of Lands and Librarian, 
whose term is two years, are, Lieutenant-Governor, salary, 
$800; Secretary of State^ $2,500; Treasurer, $2,500; Auditor, 



RULING BY STATES. 847 

;^2,50o; Attorney-General, ;^2,5oo; Superintendent Public Educa- 
tion, ;^2,ooo ; Commissioner Agriculture, ;^ I, ooo; Commissioner 
Lands, ^i,ooo; Adjutant-General, ;^500; State Librarian, ;^8oo. 

The Legislature is composed of 37 Senators and 120 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^400 a year. Legislature 
meets biennially on Tuesday after first Monday in January. No 
limit to length of session. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections are held on 
Tuesday after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two asso- 
ciates, appointed by the Governor and Senate for a term of nine 
years. Salary of each, ;^3,500. 

Representatives in Congress, 7; Presidential electors, 9. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Maj. 

1872 President 47,191 81,916 34,725 R. 

1873 Governor 52,904 74>307 21,403 R. 

1876 President I09»I73 51,605 57,5680. 

1877 Governor 96,454 1, 168 95,286 D. 

1880 President 75,75o 34,^54 40,8960. 

1 88 1 Governor 76,365 51,364 25,001 D. 



MISSOURI. 




NAME. — So called from the river, which means, in Indian, 
" muddy water." 

AZfMISSION.^Erected into a Territory, June 4, 1812 ; 
act of admission, March 2, 1821; actual admission, Aug. 10, 
1821. 



348 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



AREA. — Square miles, 68,735 ; acres, 4^,990,400; persons to 
square mile, 31.55. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1810 20,845 

1820 66,557 

1830 140,455 

1840 383*702 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

219,2 

III.O 

1731 



Census. Pop. 

1850 682,044 

i860 1,182,012 

1870... 1,721,295 

1880 2,168,380 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
77.7 
73.3 
45-6 
25-9 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 1,127,187 Native 1,956,802 

Female. .1,041,193 Foreign... 211,578 

Dwellings 369,180 

Families 403,186 

Voters — Males over 21 541,207 



White 2,022,826 Chinese .... 91 

Black 145,350 Indians 113 

Persons to a dwelling 5.87 

" family 5.38 

Natural militia, 18-44 459,209 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. i88o. 

Adair 15,190 

Andrew 16,318 

Atchison i4,556 

Audrain 19,732 

Barry t4>4o5 

Barton i",332 

Bates 25,381 

Benton 12,396 

Bollinger 11,130 

Boone 25,422 

Buchanan 49.792 

Butler 6,011 

Caldwell 13,646 

Callaway 23,670 

Camden 7,266 

Cape Girardeau 20,998 

Carroll 23,274 

Carter 2,168 

Cass 22,431 

Cedar io,74i 

Chariton 25,224 

Christian 9,628 

Clark 15,031 

Clay 15,572 

Clinton 16,073 

Cole 15,515 

Cooper 21,596 

Crawford 10,756 

Dade 12,557 

Dallas 9,263 

Daviess 19,145 

DeKalb i3,334 

Dent 10,646 

Dodge 

Douglas 7,753 

Dunklin 9,604 

Franklin 26,534 

Gasconade ii,i53 

Gentry 17,176 

Greene 28,801 

Grundy «... 15,185 

Harrison 20,304 

Henry 23,906 

Hickory 7,387 

Holt 15,509 

Howard 18,428 

Howell 8,814 



1870. 
11,448 

15,137 

8,440 
12,307 
10,373 

5,087 
15,960 
11,322 

8,162 
20,765 
35,109 

4,298 
11,390 
19,202 

6,108 
17,558 
17,446 

1,455 
19,296 

9>474 
19,136 

6,707 
13,667 
15,564 
14,063 
10,292 
20,692 

7,982 

8,683 

8,383 
14,410 

9.858 

6,357 

3,915 

5,982 
30,098 
10,093 
11,607 
21,549 
10,567 
14,635 
17,401 

6,452 
1 1 ,652 
17,233 

4,218 



i860. 

8,531 
11,850 

4,649 
8,075 
7,995 
i,8j7 
7,215 
9,072 

19,486 

23,861 
2,891 
5,034 

17,449 
4,975 

15,547 
9,763 
1,235 

6,637 
12,562 

5,491 

11,684 

13,023 

7,848 

9.697 

17,356 

5,823 

7,072 

5,892 

9,606 

5,224 

5,654 



2,414 
5,026 
18,085 
8,727 
11,980 
13,186 

10,626 
9,866 
4,705 
6,550 

15,946 
3.^69 



Counties. 1880. 

Iron 8,183 

Jackson 82,325 

Jasper 32,019 

Jefferson 18,736 

Johnson 28,172 

Knox 13,047 

Laclede 11,524 

La Fayette 25,710 

Lawrence 17,583 

Lewis 15,925 

Lincoln 17,426 

Linn 20,016 

Livingston 20,196 

McDonald 7,816 

Macon 26,222 

Madison 8,876 

Maries 7,304 

Marion 24,837 

Mercer 14,673 

Miller 9,805 

Mississippi 9,270 

Moniteau 14,346 

Monroe 19,071 

Montgomery 16,249 

Morgan 10,132 

New Madrid 7,694 

Newton 18,947 

Nodaway 29,544 

Oregon 5,791 

Osage 11,824 

Ozark 5,618 

Pemiscot 4,299 

Perry 11,895 

Pettis 27,271 

Phelps 12,568 

Pike 26,715 

Platte 17,366 

Polk 15,734 

Pulaski 7,250 

Putnam 13, 555 

Ralls 11,838 

Randolph 22,751 

Ray 20,190 

Reynolds 5,722 

Ripley- 5,377 

Saint Charles 23,063 

Saint Clair 14,125 



1870. 


i860. 


6,278 


5,842 


55,041 


22,913 


14,928 


6,883 


15,380 


10,344 


24,648 


14,644 


10,974 


8.727 


9.380 


5.182 


22,623 


20,098 


13,067 


8,846 


15,114 


12,286 


15.960 


14,210 


15,900 


9,112 


16,730 


7,417 


5,226 


4,038 


23,230 


14,346 


5,849 


5,664 


5,916 


4.901 


23,780 


18,838 


11,557 


9,300 


6,616 


6,812 


4,982 


4,859 


11,375 


10,124 


17,149 


14,785 


10,405 


9,718 


8,434 


8,202 


6.357 


5.654 


12,821 


9.319 


14,751 


5.252 


3,287 


3,009 


10,793 


7,879 


3,363 


2,447 


2,059 


2,962 


9.877 
18,706 


9,128 


9.392 


10,506 


5,714 


23,076 


18,417 


17,352 


18,350 


12,445 


9-995 
3,835 


4,714 


11,217 


9,207 
8,592 


10,510 


15,908 


11,407 


18,700 


14,092 


3,756 


3,173 


3,175 


3,747 


21,304 


16,523 


6,742 


6,812 



RULING BY STATES. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Saint Francois 13,822 

Saint Genevieve 10,390 

Saint Louis..... 31,888 

Saint Louis City 350,518 

Saline 29,911 

Schuyler 10,470 

Scotland 12,508 

Scott 8,587 

Shannon 3, 441 

Shelby 14,024 

Stoddard 13.431 

Stone 4,404 



1870. 
9>742 
8,384 



351 



21,672 
8,820 

10,670 
7^317 
2,339 

10,119 

8,535 
3,253 



i860. 

7.249 
8,029 

190.524 

14,699 
6,697 
8.873 
5,247 
2,284 
7,301 
7,877 
2,400 



Counties. 1880. 

Sullivan 16,569 

Taney. 5,599 

Texas 12,206 

Van Buren 

Vernon 19,369 

Warren io,8c6 

Washington 12,896 

Wayne 9,096 

Webster 12,175 

Worth 8,203 

Wright 9,712 



1870. 

11,907 

4,407 

9,618 



i860. 
9,198 
3,576 
6,067 



11,249 


4,850 


9,673 


8,839 


11,719 


9.723 


6,068 


5,629 


10,434 


7,099 


5,004 
5,684 




4,508 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 17; instructors, 233; students, 

3,239. 

Public schools, 10,329; value of school property, ;^7,8 10,924; 
teachers, 10,802; teachers' salaries (1882), ^2,226,610; receipts 
for school purposes, ;?3, 930,003 ; expended for same (1882), 
^3,753,224; school age, 6-20 years; school population (1882), 
741,622; pupils enrolled (1882), 488,091; average attendance 
(1880), 260,540; average length of school session in 1882, '^'j 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 138,818, being 8.9 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write: native white, 137,949; foreign 
white, 14,561; colored, Chinese and Indians, 56,244; total, 
208,754, being 13.4 per cent, of all persons over ten years of 
age. 

Daily papers, 43 ; others, 488; total, 531. Circulation, 1,031,- 
360. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 355,297; 
in professional and personal service, 148,588; in trade and trans- 
portation, 79,300; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
109,774. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 215,575 ; total acres in 
farms, 27,879,276; improved acres, 16,745,031; average size of 
farms, 129 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^375,633,307 ; 
value of implements, ;^ 18, 103,074 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^95 ,9 12,660. 

Principal Products, 

Quantity. Quantity. 

Barley 123,031 bush. Butter 28,572,124 lbs. 

Buckwheat 57.640 « J Cheese 283,484 " 



?50 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Principal Products — Continued. 



Quantity. 

Cotton 20,318 bales. 

Hay 1,077,458 tons. 

Indian Corn 202,414,413 bush. 

Milk 3,173,017 galls. 

Oats 20,670,958 bush. 

Orchard products ;55i,8i2,873 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 4, 189,694 bush. 

" sweet 431,484 " 

Rye 535426 " 

Tobacco 12,015,657 lbs. 

Wheat 24,966,627 bush. 

Wool 7,313,924 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 667,776 

Mules and asses 192,027 

Working oxen 9,020 

Milch cows 661 ,405 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 

Other cattle 1,410,507 

Sheep 1,41 1,298 

Swine 4,553,123 



[880 1^95,785,282 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umhtv of establishments, 8,592; 
capital invested, $'/ 2,^,0'/, ^44. ; hands employed, 63,995 ; wages 
paid, ;^24,309,7i6; value of material, ;gi 10,798,392 ; value of 
products, ;^i65, 386,205. 

The principal manufactures are 



Agricultural implements $1,141,822 

Bags of flax and hemp 1,730,000 

Boots and shoes 1,982,993 

Bakery products 3,250,192 

Brick and tile 1,602,522 

Carriages and wagons 2,483,738 

Cars 1,931,609 

Clothing, men's 3,822,477 

Flour and mill products 32,438,831 

Machinery . . 6,798,832 



Furniture $2,380,563 

Iron and steel 4,660,530 

Liquors, malt and distilled. . 5,575,607 

Lumber, sawed and planed. . 6,533,253 

Paints 2,825,860 

Printing and publishing 4,452,962 

Saddlery and harness 3,976,175 

Slaughtering and packing. . . 14,628,630 

Sugar and molasses, refined. 4,475,740 

Tobacco and cigars 6,810,719 



Total steam and water power in use, 80,749 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qudintity : 



Coal, bituminous ^543,990 tons. 

Iron ore 386,197 " 

Lead ore 28,315 " 

Zinc ore 34,344 " 

Copper ingots 230,717 lbs. 

Minor minerals. 



Value. 
$1,037,100 

1,674,875 

1,478,571 

599,373 

25,730 

13,196 



Total value of mineral products $4,828,845 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— 'R.^Wro^ds in 1883, 6,029 
miles of line; miles operated, 4,922 ; cost, $2g-^,442,2ji\ total 
investment, ;^349,823,650. Steam craft, 167 ; tonnage, 60,873 5 
value, ;^2,098,ooo. Barges and flats, 277 ; tonnage, 183,988 ; value, 
;^ 1, 049,800. 



1 



RULING BY STATES. 35I 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— AssQssQd value of real estate 
(1883), ;^478,454,266 ; personal property, $170,813,976. State 
taxation (1883), rate 40 cents on ;^ioo, ;^2, 839,5 23 ; county tax- 
ation, 1^2,885,503 ; city, town and district, ;^5, 258,955. State debt, 
1883, all funded, ;^ 1 3,979,000; county, city and town indebted- 
ness, $40,748,384. 

GO VERNMENT.—Cd.pit3\, Jefferson City. Governor elected 
for four years. Salary, $5,000. The other State officers — all 
for four years, except Railroad Commissioners, for six years — 
are: Lieutenant-Governor, salary $5 per day; Secretary of State, 
$3,000; Treasurer, $3,000; Auditor, $3,000; Attorney-General, 
$3,000; Adjutant-General (Governor's will), $2,000; Superin- 
tendent of Public Schools, $3,000; Land Register, $3,000 ; 3 
Railroad Commissioners, $3,000; Superintendent of Insurance, 
$4,000 ; State Librarian, $4,000. 

The Legislature is composed of 34 Senators and 141 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of each, $5 a day, $30 extra and mileage. 
Legislature meets biennially on Wednesday after January ist. 
Sessions limited to 70 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after the first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four as- 
sociates, elected by the people for ten years, one being elected 
every two years. Salary of each, $4,500. 

Representatives in Congress, 14; Presidential electors, 16. 
. POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. 

1872 President 15^433 

1874 Governor 149,556 

1876 " 199,580 

1876 President 203,077 

1880 " 208,609 

1880 Governor 207,670 

1882 Judge Supreme Court. 193,620 



Rep. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


119,196 





32,237 D. 


112,104 




37,452 D. 


147,694 




51,886 D. 


145,029 





58,048 D. 


153,567 


35,045 


55,042 D. 


153,636 


36,338 


54,034 !>• 


128,239 


33,407 • 


65,381 D. 



352 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

MONTANA TERRITORY. 

NAME. — A name descriptive of its topography — the moun- 
tainous Territory. 

ORGANIZATION.— Kr^oX^A into a Territory, May 26, 1864. 

AREA. — Square miles, 145,310; acres, 92,998,400; persons 
to a square mile, 0.27. 

P(9P67:^776>iVand rate of increase: > 

Census. Pop. Per cent of 

1 870 20,595 increase. 

1880 39»I59 90-1 

1880 by Classes. 

Male. .. .28,177 Native 27,638 White 35,385 Chinese 1,765 

Female. . 10,982 Foreign . ..11,521 Black..., 346 Indians 1,663 

Dwellings 9,205 Persons to a dwelling 4.25 

Families 9,931 " " family 3.94 

Voters — Males over 21 21,544 Natural militia, 18-44 18,147 

By Counties for three Censuses. 

Counties. 1880. 1870. i86c. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Beaver Head 2,712 722 

Choteau 3,058 517 

Custer 2,510 38 

Dawson 180 177 

Deer Lodge 8,876 4,367 

Gallatin 3,643 1,578 



Jefferson 2,464 1,531 

Lewis and Clarke 6,521 5,040 

Madison 3,915 2,684 

Meagher 2,743 1,387 

Missoula 2,537 2,554 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, 159; value of school prop- 
erty, ;^I32,507; teachers, 167; teachers' salaries, ;^53,785; re- 
ceipts for school purposes, ;^76,302 ; expended for same, $6'^,- 
002; school age, 4-21 years; school population (1882), 10,482; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 6,054; average attendance (1882), 3,558; 
average length of school year in 1882, 125 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 1,530, being 4.8 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 272; foreign white, 359; col- 
ored, Chinese and Indians, 1,076; total, 1,707, being 5.3 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 4 ; others, 14; total, 18. Circulation, 21,227. 

OCCUPATIONS.— Y^vsons engaged in agriculture, 4,513 ; 
in professional and personal services, 6,954 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 2,766; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 8,- 
022. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 1,519; total acres in 



RULING BY STATES. 353 

farms, 405,683 ; improved acres, 262,611 ; average size of farms, 
267 acres ; value of farms and buildings, ;^3, 234,504 ; value of 
implements, ;^40i,i85 ; total value of all farm products, sold, 
consumed or on hand, ^2,024,923. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 39»970 bush. 

Buckwheat 437 " 

Butter 403,738 lbs. 

Cheese 55,570 " 

Hay 63,947 tons. 

Indian Corn 5,649 bush. 

Milk 41,165 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 900,915 bush. 

Orchard products 5i,530 

Potatoes, Irish, , . .* 228,702 bush. 

Rye . 430 " 

Wheat 469,688 « 

Wool 995,484 lbs. 



Live-Stock, 



Number. 

Other cattle 160,143 

Sheep 184,277 

Swine 10,278 



Number. 
Horses 35, 1^4 

Mules and asses 858 

Working oxen 936 

Milch cows 1 1,308 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 i$^5, 15 1,554 

MAN UFA CTURES. — Number of establishments, 196 ; capital 
invested, ^899,390; hands employed, 578 ; wages paid, ;^3 18,759; 
value of material, 1^1,006,442 ; value of products, ;^ 1,835,867. 

The principal manufactures are : 
Flour and mill products $475,467 | Lumber, sawed $527,695 

Total steam and water power in use, 1,498 horse-power. 
J//AV7\^6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold {551,805,767 

Silver 2,905,068 

Coal, bituminous 224 tons 800 

Copper ingots* 1,212,500 lbs. 

Total mineral products $4,7 1 1 ,635 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed valuation of real 
estate (1882), ;^8,639,736; of personal property, ;^24,582,583. 
Territorial taxation (1883), rate 10 cents on ;^ioo, ;^90,272 ; 
county, ;^3I7,337; city and town, ;^io,78i. Territorial debt 
(1884), ;^45,ooo; county and town debt, ;^695,248. 

GOVERNMENT. — Capital, Helena. Governor appointed by 
the President and Senate for four years. Salary, $2,600. The 

* The copper ingots of the precious mineral areas have their,values credited to 
the sections in which they are refined. 
23 



354 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Other Territorial officers are a Secretary, term four years, salary, 
;^i,8oo; a Treasurer and Auditor, term two years each, salary 
of each, ;^ 1,500. 

The Legislature is composed of 12 Senators and 24 Repre- 
sentatives, all chosen for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $4 a 
day and 20 cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on 
second Monday in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

Territorial elections held on Tuesday after first Monday in 
November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two as- 
sociates, appointed by the President and Senate for four years. 
Salary of each, ^3,000. 
; Representative in Congress, I Delegate. 

POLITICS.— YotQ for Delegate : 

Dem. Rep. Maj. 

1880 7,799 6,371 1,428 D. 

1882 12,398 10,914 1,4840. 



NEBRASKA. 




^; 



NAME. — So called from the Nebraska River. The word is 
Indian, meaning " water valley," or " shallow river." 

ADMISSION.— Erected into a Territory, May 30, 1854; 
act of admission, February 9, 1867; actual admission, March i, 
1867. 

AREA. — Square miles, 76,185 ; acres, 48,758,400; persons to 
a square mile, 5.94. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 

Census. Pop. Per cent of 

i860 28,841 increase. 

1870 122,993 326.4 

1880 452,402 267.8 



RULING BY STATES. 



356 



•Male 249,241 

Female. ,203,161 
Dwellings 



1880 by Classes. 



Native 354,988 

Fureign. ... 97,414 
85,848 



Families 89,135 

Voters — Males over 21 129,042 



18 

235 



White 449,764 Chinese 

Black 2,385 Indians 

Persons to a dwelling 5.27 

" " family 5.08 

Natural militia, 18-44 1 12,884 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 10,235 

^"'«i°P«: 3,953 

Blackbird icg 

Boone 4,170 

BufTalo 7,531 

Burt 6,937 

Putler 9.194 

Calhoun 

Cass 16,683 

Cedar 2,899 

Chase 70 

Cheyenne 1,558 

Clay ",294 

Colfax 6,588 

Cuming 5,569 

Custer 2,211 

Dakota 3,213 

Dawson 2,909 

Dixon 4,177 

Dodge 11,263 

Douglass 37,645 

Dundy 37 

Fillimore 10,204 

Fort Randall 

Franklin 5,465 

Frontier 934 

Furnas 6,407 

Gage 13,164 

Gosper 1,673 

Grant 

Greeley 1,461 

Green 

Hall 8,572 

Hamilton 8,267 

Harlan 6,086 

Harrison 

Hayes 119 

Hitchcock 1,012 

Holt 3,287 

Howard 4, 391 

Jackson 



1870. 



i860. 



19 





31 




193 
2,847 

1,290 


114 
388 
27 


8,151 

1,032 

190 

54 
1,424 
2,964 


3,369 
246 

'■"165 
6^ 



2,040 

103 

1,345 
4,212 
19,982 



247 

■ 309 
4,328 



238 


353 


26 






3.359 


42T 


484 






16 


1,057 
130 


116 


631 












9 





Counties. 1880. 

Jefferson 8,096 

Johnson 7,595 

Tones 



ivearney 
Keith .... 



4,072 

194 

Kno.x 3,666 

Lancaster 28,090 

Lincoln 3,632 

Lyon 

Madison 5,589 

Merrick 5,341 

Monroe 

Nance 1,212 

Nemaha 10,451 

Nuckolls 4,235 

Otoe 15.727 

l*awnee 6,920 

Phelps 2,447 

Pierce 1.202 

Platte 9,511 

Polk 6,846 

Red Willow 3,044 

Richaidson 15,031 

Saline 14,491 

Sarpy 4,481 

Saunders 15,810 

Seward ii,i47 

Sherman 2,c6i 

Shorter 

Sioux 699 

Stanton..... 1,813 

Taylor 

Thayer 6,113 

Valley 2,324 

Washington 8,631 

Wayne 813 

Webster 7,104 

Wheeler 644 

York 11,170 

Unorganized Ter'y.. 2,913 



1870. 


i8$o. 


2,440 





3,429 


528 






58 


47.4 


261 


152 


7,074 


153 


"^1 




78 




1,133 




557 


109 


235 




44 





7,593 


3,139 


8 


22 


12,345 


4,211 


4.171 


882 


152 




1,899 


^ 


136 


19 


9.780 


2,835 


3,ic6 


39 


2.913 


I,20I 


4.547 





2,953 






117 


""636 


97 








4,452 


1,249 


182 




16 




604 





235 



1,76s 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 5; instructors, 49 ; students, 538. 

Public schools, 3,286; value of school property, ;^2,o6i,059; 
teachers, 3,418; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^702, 127 ; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^i, 252,898 ; expended for same (1882), ;^i,358,- 
346; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 165,- 
511; pupils enrolled, 115,546; average attendance (1882), 
66,027; average length of school year in 1882, in days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 7,830, being 2.5 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 5,102; foreign jwhite, 



356 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

5,824; colored, Chinese and Indians, 602; total, 11,528, being 
3.6 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 15; others, 174; total, 189. Circulation, 160,158. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 90,507; 
in professional and personal services, 28,746 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 15,106; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
18,255. 

AGRICULTURE.— Number of farms, 63,387; total acres in 
farms, 9,944,826; improved acres, 5,504,702 ; average size in 
farms, 157 acres; value of farms and buildings, $105,932,541 ; 
value of implements, ;^7,820,9I7; total value of farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, 1^3 1,708,914. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 1,744,686 bush. 

Buckwheat 17,562 ** 

Butter 9,725,198 lbs. 

Cheese 230,819 " 

Hay 785.433 tons. 

Indian Corn 65,450,135 bush. 

Milk 625,783 galls. 

Oats 6,555,875 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products 1^72,244 

Potatoes, Irish 2,1 50,896 bush. 

" sweet 13,628 •* 

Rye 424,348 " 

Tobacco 57,979 lbs. 

Wheat 13,847,007 bush. 

Wool 1,282,656 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 590, 1 29 

Sheep .' 199.453 

Swine 1,241,724 



Number. 

Horses 204,864 

Mules and asses '9,999 

Working oxen 7,234 

Milch cows 161,187 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 )?33j440,265 

MANUFACTURES.—^umh^r of establishments, 1,403; 
capital invested, ;^4,88i,i50; hands employed, 4,793 ; wages paid, 
^1,742,311; value of materials, ;^8,2o8,478; value of products, 
$12,627,336. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Brick and tile 1^349,478 

Flour mill products 4,193,086 

Lumber sawed 265,062 

Paints 350,000 



Printing and publishing $^l^^^(il 

Snddlery and harness 477.364 

Slaughtering and packing 1,359.397 

Liquors, malt 393»870 



Total steam and water power in use, 8,494 horse-power. 
JfflVZA^a— Quantity : 

Value. 
Coal, bituminous 200 tons. $7So 



RULING BY STATES. 357 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES,— K3.\\ro2ids in 1883, 2,408 
miles of line; miles operated, 2,102; cost, ;^ 166,962, 120; 
total investment, ;^ 202, 5 39,049. Steam craft, 14; tonnage, 
1,193 ; value, ;^64,300. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;$6 1, 700,259; of personal property, ;^48,843,385. State 
taxation for two years (1881-82), rate 74 cents on ;^ioo, fe82,- 
012 ; county taxation, ;^i, 522,229; city, town and district, ;^9I4,- 
786; State debt (1883), all funded, ;^375,582; county, city and 
town debt, ;^7,o5o,i75. 

GOVERNMENT— Capita.1 Lincoln. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^2,500. The other State officers — selected 
for two years, except Secretary Board Agriculture one year, 
and Librarian four years — are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, $6 
a day ; Secretary of State, ;^2,ooo ; Treasurer, ;^2,5oo ; Auditor, 
;^2,500; Attorney-General, ;^2,ooo; Superintendent Public In- 
struction, ;^2,ooo; Adjutant-General, ;^500; Secretary Board 
Agriculture, ;^ 1,000; Commissioner Public Lands, ^2,000; 
Librarian, ;^ 1,5 00. 

The Legislature is composed of 33 Senators and 100 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, ^3 
a day and 10 cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on 
first Tuesday in January. Session limited to 40 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two 
Associate Justices, elected by the people for six years. Salary 
of each Judge, ;^2,500. 

Representatives in Congress, 3; Presidential electors, 5. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Ind. Tem. Maj. 

1872 President 18,245 7.705 10,540 R. 

1874 Governor 20,874 8,471 3,987 1,257 7,159 R. 

1876 President 31,916 17,554 2,336 4,964 14,362 R. 

1876 Governor 31,947 17,219 3,022 30 14,728 R. 

"878 " 29,469 13,473 9,475 I5,996R. 

1880 President 54,979 28,523 3,95° 26,456 R. 

1880 Governor 55,237 28,167 3,898 27,027 R. 

1882 « 43,495 28,562 16,991 14.933 R- 



35g 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 




NEVADA. 



NAME. — From the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which in turn 
duplicate the Sierra Nevadas of Spain. Nevada, or nevado, 
means, in Spanish, " white with snow." Popular name, " The 
Silver State." 

ADMISSION.— ^x^z\.^d. into a Territory March 2, i86i. 
Act of admission dated March 21, 1864; actual admission, 
Oct. 31, 1864. 

AREA. — Square miles, 109,740; acres, 70,233,600; persons 
to a square mile, 0.57. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 

Census. Pop. 

1S60 6,857 

1870 42,491 

1880 62,266 

1880 by Classes. 

Male 42,019 Native. ... 36,613 While 53,556 

Female. ..20,247 Foreign 25,653 Black 488 

Dwellings '4.557 Persons to a dwelling. 

Families 15,158 " " family. . 

Voters — Males over 21 3'>255 Natural militia, 18-44, 



Per cent, of 

increase. 

519.6 

46.5 



Chinese. 
Indians. 



•5,419 
•2,803 
. 4.25 
. 4.11 
25,967 



Counties. 1880. 

Carson 

Churchill 479 

Douglas 1,581 

Elko 5,716 

Esmeralda 3,220 

Eureka 7,086 

Humboldt 3,480 

Lander 3,624 

Lincoln 2,637 



By Counties for three Censuses. 
1870, 



196 
1,215 

3,447 
1,553 

1,916 
2,815 
2,985 



i860. 
6,712 



Counties. 1880. 

Lyon 2,409 

Nye 1,875 

Ormsby 5,412 

Roop 286 

Saint Mary's 

Storey 16,115 

Washoe ',664 

White Pine 2.682 



1870. 


i860. 


1.B37 




1,087 





«,668 




133 






105 


",359 




3,c9i 




7,189 





EDUCATION. — Colleges, i; instructors, i; students, 40. 

Public schools, 185; value of school property, ;^282,870; 
teachers, 195; teachers' salaries, ;^i3i,oi9; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^27 5, 967; expended for same, ;^2 1 2, 164; school age, 



RULING BY STATES. 35^ 

6~l8 years; school population (1882) 10,483; pupils enrolled 
(1882), 8,158; average attendance (1882), 5,286; average length 
of school year in 1882, 146 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 3,703, being 7.3 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 240; foreign white, 
1,675 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 2,154; total, 4,069, being 8 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 14; others, 23 ; total, 37. Circulation, 28,395. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 4,180; 
in professional and personal services, 10,373 5 ^^ trade and trans- 
portation, 4,449 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

13,231. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 1,404; total acres in 
farms, 530,862 ; improved acres, 344,423 ; average size of farms, 
378 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^5,4o8,325 ; value of 
implements, t'}^']'^,']'^'^ ; total value of all farm products, sold^ 
consumed or on hand, ;^2, 85 5,449. 

Principal Products. . i 



Quantity. 

Barley 513,470 bush. 

Butter 335jI88 lbs. 

Cheese .i7j420 " 

Hay.... '95'853 tons. 

Indian Corn 12,891 bush. 

Milk 149,889 galls. 



Quantity. } 

Oats 186,860 bush. 

Orchard products $3,619 

Potatoes, Irish 302,143 bush. 

Tobacco 1,500 lbs. 

Wheat 69,298 bush. 

Wool 655,012 lbs. J 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 158,137 

Sheep.. 133.69^ 

Swine 9,080 



Number. 

Horses 32,087 

Mules and asses 1,258 

Working oxen 765 

,Milch cows 13,319 

Value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $3,399,749 

MANUFACTURES.— ^nmher of establishments, 184; cap- 
ital invested, 1^1,323,300; hands employed, .577; wages paid, 
;^46i,8o7; value of material, ;^i,049,794; value of products, 
3^2,179,626. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products $405,089 | Foundry and machine-shop. . , .$320,955 

Total steam and water power in use, 716 horse-power. 



360 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Jf/A7iV6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold 14,888,242 

Silver 1 2,430,667 

Copper ingots 734>730 lbs. 

Total value of precious minerals $17,318,909 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES,— K^iWrodids in 1883, 509 
miles of line ; miles operated, 447 ; cost, ^22,788,998 ; total in- 
vestment, ;^25, 7 14,003. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^ 19, 1 52,542; of personal property, ;^8,2i6,7i4. State 
taxation (1883), 90 cents on ;^ioo, ;^246,324; county taxation, 
$6ig,i6g; city and town, ;^9I403. State debt (1883), all funded, 
^555,000; county, city and town debt, ;^ 1,024,5 23. 

GOVERNMENT — Capital, Carson City. Governor chosen 
for four years. Salary, ^5,000. The other State officers, all 
chosen for four years, are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^3,oco; 
Secretary .of State, ;^ 3, 000; Treasurer, ;^3, 000; Comptroller, ;^3,- 
000; Attorney-General, ;^3,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruc- 
tion, $2,400; Surveyor-General, ;^3,ooo. The Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor acts as Adjutant-General and Librarian. 

The Legislature is composed of 20 Senators and 40 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for four years, Representatives 
for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $S per day and 40 cents 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Monday in Jan- 
uary. Session limited to 60 day^. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two as- 
sociates, chosen by the people for a term of six years. Salary 
of each Judge, ;^6,ooo. 

Representative in Congress, I ; Presidential electors, 3. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 





Dem. 


Rep. 


Maj. 


1872 President. . . . 


.. 6,236 


8,413 


2,177 R. 


1874 Governor. . . . 


.. 10,339 


7,755 


2,584 D. 


1876 President 


. . 9,308 


10,383 


1,075 R- 


1878 Governor 


-. 9.151 


9,678 


527 R. 


1880 President 


.. 9,611 


8,732 


879 D. 


1882 Governor, . . . 


. . 7,770 


6,535 


1,235 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



361 




NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

NAME. — Named by Mason, grantee of the Plymouth Com- 
pany, New Hampshire, after Hampshire county, England. Pop- 
ular name, " The Granite State." 

^Z>J//55/(97V^.— Ratified the Constitution, June 21, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 9,005; acres, 5,763,200; persons to a 
square mile, 38.53. 

POPULATION 2ind rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1790 141,885 

1800 183,858 

1810 214,460 

1820 244,022 

1830 269,328 



Per, cent, of 



increase. 



295 
16.6 

137 
10.3 



Census. Pop. 

1840 284,574 

1850 317,976 

i860 326,073 

1870 318,300 

1880 346,991 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

5-6 
11.7 

2-5 

2.3 dec. 
9.0 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 170,526 Native 300,697 

Female. . 176,465 Foreign... 46,294 

Dwellings 68,381 

Families 80,286 

Voters — Males over 21 105,138 



White...-. 346,229 Chinese.... 14 

Black 685 Indians 63 

Persons to a dwelling 5.07 

" " family 4.32 

Natural militia, 18-44 7o>4iO 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Belknap ^7,948 

Carroll 18,224 

Cheshire 28,734 

Coos 18,580 

Grafton 38,788 



1870. 
17,681 

17.332 
27,265 

14.932 
39,103 



i?6d. 

18,549 
20,465 

27.434 
13,161 
42,260 



Counties. 1880. 

Hillsborough 75)634 

Merrimack 46,300 

Rockingham 49,064 

Strafford 35,558 

Sullivan 18,161 



1870. 


i860. 


64.238 


62,140 


42,151 


41,408 


47,297 


50,122 


30.243 


31,493 


18,058 


19,041 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, i; instructors, i8; students, 235. 

Public schools, 2,552; value of school property, ^2,328,796; 
teachers, 2,620 ; teachers' salaries (1882), 417,016; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^559,I33 ; expended for same (1882), ^^578,702; 
school age, 5-15 years ; school population (1882), 60,899; pupils 



362 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

enrolled (1882), 64,349; average attendance (1882), 43,996; 
average length of school year in 1882, 96.27 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 11,982, being 4.2 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 2,710; foreign white, ii,- 
498; colored, Chinese and Indians, 94; total, 14,302, being 5 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 10; others, 79; total, 89. Circulation, 197,268. 

OCCUPATIONS.— 'Persons engaged in agriculture, 44,490; 
in professional and personal service, 28,206; in trade and trans- 
portation, 11,735; i^ manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

58,037- 

AGRICULTURE.— ^umhev of farms, 32,181; total acres 
in farms, 3,721,173 ; improved acres, 2,308,1 12 ; average size of 
farms, 116 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^75,834,389; 
value of implements, 1^3,069,240 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 13,474,330. 

Principal Products. 

Quantity. [ Quantity. 

Barley 11 ^'^11 bush. Oats 1,017,620 bush. 



Buckwheat 94,090 

Butter 'j,2^'j,2']2 lbs. 

Cheese 807,076 '* 

Hay 583,069 tons. 

Hops 23,955 'bs. 

Indian Corn 1,350,248 bush. 

Milk 5,739,128 galls. 



Orchard products. .. . $972,291 

Potatoes, Irish 3,358,828 bush. 

Rye 34,638 " 

Tobacco 1 70,843 lbs. 

Wheat 169,316 bush. 

Wool 1,060,589 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 
Number, 1 Number. 



Horses. 4^,773 

Mules and asses 87 

Working oxen 29,152 

Milch cows 90,564 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $9,812,064 



Other cattle 112,689 

Sheep 21 1,825 

Swine 53,437 



MANUFACTURES.— Number of establishments, 3,181 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^5 1,112,263 ; hands employed, 48,831 ; wages paid, 
^14,814,793; value of material, ;^43,552,462; value of products, 
^73.978,028. 

The principal products are : 

Boots and shoes ^7,230,804 I Dyeing and finishing j^l, 568,100 

Cotton goods 18,226,573 I Flour and mill products 2,542,784 



RULING BY STATES. 3^3 



Machinery ;^2,024,656 

Hosiery 2,362,779 

Leather curried and tanned.. 4,477,350 

Liquors, malt.. . , 1,265,477 

Lumber, sawed 3,842,012 



Mixed textiles ^2,703,281 

Paper 1,731,170 

Woollen goods 8,1 13,839 

Worsted goods 2,694,232 



Total steam and water power in use, 87,750 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qud^nWiy : 

Value. 

Gold ^10,999 

Silver 1 6,000 

Copper ingots 34>050 lbs. 5>993 

Minor minerals 112,550 

Total precious minerals, $26,999. Non-precious.... 118,543 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^Alro^ds in 1883, 890 
miles of line; miles operated, 638; cost, ;^25, 176,984 ; total 
investment, ;^27,28i,758. Steam craft, 25; tonnage, 2,000; 
value, ;^ 1 22,900. Sail craft, 69; tonnage, 9,482; value, ^^237,- 
050. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^i 12,91 1,992 ; of personal property, ;^ 100,085,140. State 
taxation (1883), rate 19 cents on ;^ioo, ;^398,692 ; county, ;^483,- 
978; city and town, ;^i,8i8,290. State debt (1883) funded, ^3,- 
306,000 ; unfunded, ;^ioo; county, city and town debt, ;^7, 162,980. 

GOVERNMENT— Csipital, Concord. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^ 1,000. The other State officers are : Secre- 
tary of State (two years), salary, ;^8oo; Treasurer (two years), 
;^i,8oo; Attorney-General (five years), ;^2,200; Superintendent 
Public Instruction (two years), ;^2,ooo; Commissioner of Insur- 
ance (three years), fees; three Railroad Commissioners (one, two 
and three years), ;^2, 500, ^2,200 and $2,000; Adjutant-General 
(two years), $1,000; Secretary Board Agriculture (two years), 
$1,000; State Librarian (two years), $800. 

The Legislature is composed of 24 Senators and 321 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $3 
a day and mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Wednes- 
day in June. No limit to the session. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salaiy, $2,900, and 
six Associate Justices, salary of each, $2,700. They are all ap- 



364 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

pointed by the Governor and Council until such time as they 
shall reach seventy years of age. 

Representatives in Congress, 2 ; Presidential Electors, 4. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Tem. Mnj. 

1872 President 37. 168 31,425 200 5,743 R. 

1875 Governor 39.293 39-121 792 172 R. 

1876 President 41.539 3^.509 82 3,030 R. 

1877 Governor 40,755 36,721 338 4,034 R. 

J878 " 38,175 31.135 6,507 7,040 R. 

1880 President 44,855 40,798 708 4,057 R. 

1880 Governor 44,435 40,866 892 3,569 R. 

1882 " 38,399 36,879 1,520 R. 



NEW JERSEY. 




NAME. — So called in honor of Sir George Carterfet, one of 
its original proprietors, an inhabitant of the Island of Jersey, in 
the British Channel, who bravely defended the island against the 
Long Parliament during the civil war. 

ADMISSION.— ?.^\:\^^^ the Constitution, Dec. 18, 1787. 

AREA. — Square miles, 7,455; acres, 4,771,200; persons to 
a square mile, 151.73. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 184,139 

1800 211,149 

1810 245,562 

1820 277,426 

1830 320,823 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

14.6 
16.2 
12.9 
15.6 



Census. Pop. 

1840 373.306 

1850 489.555 

i860 672,035 

1870 906,096 

1880 1,131,116 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
16.3 
311 
37-2 
34.8 
24.8 



RULING BY STATES 



365 



1880 by Classes. 

Male 559,922 Native 909,416 White 1,092,017 Chinese 172 

Female. .571,194 Foreign 221,700 Black 38,853 Indians 74 

Dwellings 190,403 Persons to a dwelling 5.94 

Families 232,309 " " family 4.87 

Voters — Males over 21 300,635 Natural militia, 18-44 230,054 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Atlantic 18,704 

Bergen 36,786 

Burlington 55,402 

Camden 62,942 

Cape May 9,765 

Cumberland 37,687 

Essex 189,929 

Gloucester 25,886 

Hudson 187,944 

Hunterdon 38,570 

Mercer 58,061 



1870. 
14,093 
30,122 
53,639 
46,193 

8,349 
34,665 

143,839 
21,562 

129.067 
36,963 
46,386 



i860. 
11,786 
21,618 
49,730 
34,457 

7,130 
22,605 
98,877 
18,444 
62,717 
33,654 
37,419 



Counties. 1880. 

Middlesex 52,286 

Monmouth 55,5s8 

Morris 50,861 

Ocean 14, 455 

Passaic 68,860 

Salem 24,579 

Somerset 27,162 

Sussex 23,539 

Union 55, 571 

Warren 36,589 



I 


870. 


i860. 


45 


029 


34 


,812 


46 


195 


39 


,346 


43 


137 


34 


.(577 


13 


628 


II 


.176 


46 


416 


29 


.01^ 


23,943 


22 


458 


23,510 


22 


057 


23 


168 


23 


846 


41 


859 


27 


780 


34 


336 


28 


433 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 4; instructors, 75 ; students, 727. 
'. Public schools, 3,241 ; value of school property, ;^6,298,500; 
teachers, 3,422; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^i, 776,052; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^ 1,88 1,1 03 ; expended for same (1882), $2^- 
142,385; school age, 5-18 years; school population (1882), 
343,897; pupils enrolled, 209,526; average attendance (1882), 
113,532; average length of school year in 1882, 192 days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 39,136, being 
4.5 per cent, of all those over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 20,093 ; foreign white, 
23,956; colored, Chinese and Indiaos, 9,200; total, 53,249, 
being 6.2 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 27; others, 190; total, 217. Circulation, 256,- 
040. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 59,214; 
in professional and personal service, 1 10,722 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 66,382 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
160,561. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 34,307; total acres 
in farms, 2,929,773 ; improved acres, 2,096.297 ; average size 
of farms, 85 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^I90,895,- 
833; value of implements, ^6,921,085; total value of all farm 
products, sold, consumed or on hand, $2g,6so,y$6. 



366 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 4,091 bush. 

Buckwheat 466,414 " 

Butter 9.5I3»835 lbs. 

Cheese 66,518 " 

Hay 5 18,990 tons. 

Indian Corn 11,150,705 bush. 

Milk 15,472,783 galls. 

Oats 3>7io»573 bush. 



Quantity. 
Orchard products. . . . ^860,090 

Potatoes, Irish 3,5^3,793 bush. 

" sweet 2,086,731 " 

Rye 949,064 



Tobacco. 

Wheat 

Wool.. 



172,315 lbs. 

1,901,739 bush. 

441,110 lbs. 



Live-Stock . 



Number. 

Horses 86,940 

Mules and asses 9,267 

Working oxen 2,022 

Milch cows 152,078 I 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June 



' Number. 

Other cattle 69,786 

Sheep 1 1 7,020 

Swine 219,069 



1880 ^14,861,412 



MANUFA (fr67?^5.— Number of establishments, 7,128; capi- 
tal invested, ;^ 106,226,593 ; hands employed, 126,038; wages 
paid, ;^46,o83,045 ; value of material, $i6$,2S^,yyg; value of 
products, ;^254,38o,236. 

The principal products are: 



Boots and shoes $7*055,75 1 

Bakery products 2,798,31 1 

Brick and tile 1,672,533 

Carriages and wagons 1,808,593 

Celluloid goods 1,251,540 

Clothing, men's 4,737.525 

Cotton goods 5,039,519 

Drugs and chemicals 4,993-965 

Dyeing and finishing 3,365,700 

Fertilizers 2,423,805 

Flour and mill products 8,459,944 

Machinery 1 1,282,748 

Cnnned goods 1,417,085 

Glass 2,810,170 



Hats and cnps $6,152,447 

Iron and steel 10,341,896 

Jewelry 4,079,677 

Leather, tanned and curried. . 15,475,222 

Liquors, malt 4,532,733 

Paper 2,015,569 

Sewing machines 4,640,852 

Silk and silk goods 17,122,230 

Slaughtering and packing. . . .20,719,640 

Smelting and refining 8,370,100 

Stone and earthenware 2,598,757 

Sugar and molas'^es refined. .22,841,258 

Tobacco and cigars 6,572,759 

Woollen goods 4,984,cx)7 



Total steam and water power in use, 99,858 horse-power. 
J//iV7A^6^.— Quantity : 



Iron ore 754,872 tons 

Zinc ore 39,38i " 

Minor minerals 33,828 " 



Value. 
152,900,442 
451,070 
40,270 



Total value of mineral products $3,391,782 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— RaWrosids in 1883, 1,863 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,823; cost, ;^ 197,833, 199; total 
investment, ;^240,992,895. Length of canal lines, 171 miles; 
cost, ;$ 10,776,35 3. Steam craft, 175; tonnage, 43,688; value, 



RULING BY STATES. 367 

$2,461,1^0, Sail craft, 906; tonnage, 58,123 ; value, ;^i,453,05o. 
Canal boats and barges, 621 ; tonnage, 62,293 ; value, ;^570,350. 
FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^45 2,062,3 56; of personal property, ;^ 1 25,922,571. State 
taxation (1882), rate 25 cents on ;^ioo, ;^i, 200,906; county taxa- 
tion, ;^ 1, 938,3 18; city, town and district, ;^5, 736,036. State debt 
(1882), all funded, ^^1,796,300; county, city and town debt, $48- 

733427. 

GOVERNMENT, — Capital, Trenton. Governor elected for 
three years. Salary, ^5,000. The other State officers are: 
Secretary of State (five years), salary, ^6,000; Treasurer (three 
years), ;^4,ooo; Comptroller (three years), ^4,000; Attorney- 
General (five years), ;^7,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruction 
(three years), ;^3,ooo; Adjutant-General (five years), ;^ 1,200; 
Secretary Board Agriculture (appointed), fees ; State Librarian 
(five years), ;^ 1,500. 

The Legislature is composed pf 2 1 Senators and 60 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for three years ; Representa- 
tives for one year. Salary of a Legislator, ;^500. Legislature 
meets annually on second Tuesday in January. No limit to 
sessions. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Judiciary consists of a Chancellor chosen for seven years, 
salary, ;^io,ooo; and a Supreme Court composed of a Chief 
Justice and eight Associate Justices. The Judges are appointed 
by the Governor and Senate for the term of seven years. Salary 
of Chief Justice, ^^7,500; of Associate justices, ;^7,ooo each. 

Representatives in Congress, 7 ; Presidential electors, 9. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Maj. 

1872 President 76,801 91,611 14,810 R. 

1874 Governor 97>283 84,050 13,2330. 

1876 President II5»956 103,511 12,4450. 

1877 Governor 97,840 85,094 12,7460. 

1880 " 121,666 121,015 651 D. 

1880 President 122,565 120,555 2,010 D. 

1883 Governor 103,856 97>047 6,8090. 



368 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



NEW MEXICO TERRITORY. 

NAME. — An acquisition from Mexico. Hence the name. 
ORGANIZATION.— hct of Sept. 9, 1850. 
AREA. — Square miles, 122,460; acres, 78,374,400; popula- 
tion to a square mile, 0.98. 

POPULATION and rate of increase : 



Census. 
1850... 
i860... 



Pop. 

61,547 
93,516 



Per cent. o<" 
increase. 

519 



Census. 
1870... 
1880... 





Per cent, of 


Pop. 

91,874 
"9,565 


increase. 
1.7 dec. 
30.1 



[880 by Classes. 



Male 64,496 Nntive iii,5H 

Female. .55,069 Foreign.... 8,051 

Dwellings. 26,31 1 

Families .... 28,255 

Voters — Males over 21 34,076 



White 108,721 Chinese 57 

Black.... 1,015 Indians. .. .9,772 

Persons to a dwelling 4.54 

Persons to a family 4.23 

Natural mililia, 18-44 28,452 



Counties. 

Arizona 

Bernalillo 17,225 

Colfax 3,398 

Donna Ana 7,612 

Grant 4,539 

Lincoln 2,513 

Mora 9,751 



By Counties for three Censuses. 
1880. 1870. 



7,591 
1.992 
5,864 
i,M3 
1,803 
8,056 



i86<». 
6,482 
8,769 



6,239 
5.566 



Counties. 1880. 

Rio Arriba 11,023 

San Miguel 20,638 

Santa Ana 

Santa Fe 10,867 

Socorro 7,875 

Taos 11,029 

Valencia '3,095 



1870. 


i860. 


9,294 


9.849 


16,058 


13,714 


2.599 


3.572 


9»699 


8,114 


6,683 


5,787 


12,079 


14,103 


9.093 


11,321 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, 162; value of school prop- 
erty, ;^I3,500; teachers, 164; teachers' salaries, ;^28,002 ; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^32,i7i ; expended for same, $2S,g2^; 
school age, 7-18 years; school population, 20,255; pupils en- 
rolled, 4,755 ; average attendance, 3,150. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 52,994, or 60.2 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 46,329; foreign white, 
3,268; colored, Chinese and Indians, 7,559; total 57,156, or 
65 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 3; others, 15; total, 18. Circulation, 8,855. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 14,139; 
in professional and personal services, 19,042 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 3,264 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 4,377. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 5,053; total acres in 
farms, 631,131 ; improved acres, 237,392; average size of farms, 



RULING BY STATES. 369 

125 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^5, 5 14,399; value of 
implements, $2^^,162 ; total value of all farm products, sold, con- 
sumed or on hand ^1.897,974. 

Principal Products.. 



Quantity. 

Barley 50P53 t)ush. 

Butter 44,827 lbs. 

Cheese 10,501 " 

Hay 7,650 tons. 

Indian Corn 633,786 bush. 

Oats 156,527 " 

Orchard products $26,706 

Live- Stock 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 21,883 bush. 

" sweet 3>2I7 " 

Rye 240 '* 

Tobacco 890 lbs. 

Wheat 706,641 bush. 

Wool 4,019,188 lbs. 



Number. Number. 

Other cattle 137,314 

Sheep 2,088,831 

Swine 7>857 



Horses i4»547 

Mules and asses. 1 9,063 

Working oxen 16,432 

Miich cows 12,955 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $5,010,800 

MANUFACTURES.— ^umh&v oi QstdhWshmQnts, 144; capi- 
tal invested, ;^463,275 ; hands employed, 557 ; wages paid, ;^2i8,- 
731; value of material, ;^87 1,352; value of products, $1,284,- 
846.^ 

The principal manufactures are : 

Grist-mill products $529,171 | All others ^755,675 

Total steam and water power in use, 1,359 horse-power. 
J//iV7A^C^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $49,354 

Silver 392,337 

Copper 4,055 lbs. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed valuation of real 
estate and personal property (1883), ;^27, 137,903. Territorial 
taxation (1882), ;^94,352; county taxation, $jo;j\^. Territory 
has no debt ; county indebtedness, ;^84,872. 

GOVERNMENT— C?i^\i3\, Santa Fe. Governor appointed 
by the President, by and with the advice and consent of Senate, 
for four years. Salary, $2,600. 

Legislature composed of 12 Senators and 24 Representatives. 
Term of both, two years. Legislature sits biennially, meeting on 
first Monday in Januar)^ Session limited to 60 days. Salary 
of a Legislator, $4. per day and 20 cents mileage, 
24 



370 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Territorial elections held every two years on Tuesday after first 
Monday in November. Delegate and Presidential elections on 
same date. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two asso- 
ciates, appointed by the President for four years. Salary of 
each, $3,000. 

POLITICS.— Vote for Delegate : 

Rep, Dem. Maj. 

1880 10,835 9,562 1,273 R. 

1882 15,062 13,378 1,684 R. 



NEW YORK. 




NAME (originally New Netherlands). — So called in honor of 
the Duke of York, original English grantee, and afterwards 
King James II. Popular names, " Empire State " and '* Excel- 
sior State." 

^Z)J//55/(9iV.— Ratified the Constitution, July 26, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 47,620 ; acres, 30,476,800; persons to 
a square mile, 106.74. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 340,120 

1800 589,051 

1810 959,049 

1820 1,372,111 

1830 1,918,608 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

731 
62.8 
430 
39-8 



Census. Pop. 

1840 2,428,921 

1850 3,097,394 

i860 3,880,735 

1870 4,382,759 

1880 5,082,871 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
26.5 

27.5, 
25.2 
12.9 
15-9 



1880 by Classes. 



Male .... 2,505 ,322 Native 3,871 ,492 

Female. .2,577,549 Foreign. . .1,211,379 

Dwellings.. 772,512 

Families 1,078,905 

Voters — Males over 21 1,408,751 



White 5,016,022 Chinese 926 

Black 65,104 Indians ... .819 

Persons to a dv/elling 6.58 

" " family 5.46 

Natural militia, 18-44 l>o 775 



RULING BY STATES. 



371 



By Counties fo7' three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Albany 154,890 

Allegany 41,810 

Broome 49,783 

Cattaraugus 55,8o6 

Cayuga 65,081 

Chautauqua 65,342 

Chemung 43,065 

Chenango 39,981 

Clinton 50,897 

Columbia 47,928 

Cortland 25,825 

Delaware 42,721 

Duchess 79,184 

Erie 219,884 

Essex 34,515 

Franklin 32,390 

Fulton 30,985 

Genesee 32,806 

Greene 32,695 

Hamilton 3,923 

Herkimer 42,669 

Jefferson 66,103 

Kings 599,495 

Lewis 31,416 

Livingston 39,562 

Madison 44,112 

Monroe 144,903 

Montgomery 38,315 

New York 1,206,299 

Niagara 54,i73 



1870. 

133,052 
40,814 
44,103 
43,909 
59,550 
59,327 
35,281 
40,564 
47,947 
47,044 
25,173 
42,972 
74,041 

178,699 
29,042 
30,271 
27,064 
31,606 
31,832 
2,960 
39,929 
65,415 

419,921 
28,699 
38,309 
43,522 

117,868 

34,457 
942,292 

50,437 



i860. 

113,917 
41,881 
35,906 
43,886 
55,767 
58,422 
26,917 
40,934 
45,735 
47,172 
26,294 
42,465 
64,941 

141,971 
28,214 

30,837 
24,162 
32,189 
31,930 
3,024 
40,561 
69,825 

279,122 
28,580 
39,546 
43,545 

100,648 
30,866 

813,669 
50,399 



] Counties. 

Oneida 

Onondaga 

I Ontario 

I Orange 

Orleans 

Oswego 

Otsego 

Putnam 

Queens 

Rensselaer 

Richmond 

Rockland 

Saint Lawrence. 

Saratoga 

Schenectady , 

Schoharie 

Schuyler , 

Seneca 

Steuben..... 

Suffolk 

Sullivan 

Tioga 

Tompkins 

Ulster 

Warren 

Washington' 

Wayne 

Westchester 

Wyoming , 

Yates 



1880. 


1870. 


i860. 


115,475 


110,008 


105,202 


117,893 


104,183 


90,686 


49,541 


45,108 


44,563 


88,220 


80,902 


63,812 


30,128 


27,689 


28,717 


77,911 


77,941 


75,958 


51,397 


48,967 


50,157 


15,181 


15,420 


14,002 


90,574 


73,803 


57,391 


115,328 


99,549 


86,328 


38,991 


33,029 


25,492 


27,690 


25,213 


22,492 


85,997 


84,826 


83,689 


55,156 


51,529 


51,729 


23,538 


21,347 


20,002 


32,910 


33,340 


34,469 


18,842 


18,989 


18,840 


29,278 


27,823 


28,138 


77,586 


67,717 


66,690 


53,888 


46,924 


43,275 


32,491 


34,550 


32,385 


32,673 


30,572 


28,748 


34,445 


33,178 


31,409 


85,838 


84,075 


76,381 


25,179 


22,592 


21,434 


47,871 


49,568 


45,904 


51,700 


47,710 


47,762 


108,988 


131,348 


99,497 


30,907 


29,164 


31,968 


21,087 


19,595 


20,290 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 28; instructors, 535; students, 
6,646. 

Public schools, 18,615 ; value of school property, ;^ 3 1,235,401 ; 
teachers, 20^738 ; teachers' salaries (1882), ^7,986,261 ; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^i 1,035,511 ; expended for same (1882), 
$11,422,593; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 
1,681,161; pupils enrolled (1882), 1,041,068; average attend- 
ance (1882), 569,471 ; average length of school session in 1882, 
176 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 166,625, being 4.2 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 59,516; foreign white, 
148,659; colored, Chinese and Indians, 11,425; total, 219,600, 
being 5.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 116 ; others, 1,296; total, 1,412. Circulation, 9,- 

398,495. 

' OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 377,460, 
in professional and personal service, 537,897 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 339,419; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
629,869. 



372 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 241,058; total acres in 
farms, 23,780,754; improved acres, 17,717,862; average size of 
farms, 99 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 1,05 6, 1 76,74 1 ; 
value of implements, 1^42,592,741 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 178,025,695. 

Principal Products. 

Quantity. 

Barley 7,792,062 bush. 

Buckwheat 4,461,200 " 

Butter 1 1 1,922,423 lbs. 

Cheese 8,362,590 " 

Hay 5,240,563 tons. 

Hops 21,628,931 lbs. 

Indian Corn 25,690,156 bush. 

^liik 231,965,533 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 37*575,506 bush. 

Orchard products ^8,409,794 

Potatoes, Irish 33,644,807 bush. 

" sweet 6,833 " 

Rye 2,634,690 " 

Tobacco 6,481,431 lbs. 

Wheat 1 1,587,766 bush. 

Wool 8,827,195 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 610,358 

Mules and asses 5>072 

Working oxen 37>633 

Milch cows Ij437,855 



Number. 

Other cattle 862,233 

Sheep 1,715,180 

Swine 75i>907 



Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 $l 17,868,283 

MANUFACTURES.—'^yxmh^x of establishments, 42,739; 
capital invested, ;^5 14,246,575 ; hands employed, 531,533 ; wages 
paid, ^198,634,029; value of material, ;^679,6i 2,545 ; value of 
products, ;^ 1,080,696,598. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements ^10,717,766 

Blank books 5,296,691 

Boots and shoes 18,979,259 

Bakery products I9'937>953 

Carpets 8,419,254 

Carriages and wagons 8,888,479 

Cheese and butter 12,295,353 

Clothing, men's 81,133,611 

" women's 20,314,307 

Confectionery 6,686,389 

Cooperage. 6,765,719 

Cordage 5,207,135 

Cotton goods 9.723,527 

Drugs 9.991,259 

Flour and mill products. . . . 49,331,984 

Machinery 44,714,915 

Furniture 15,210,879 

Gloves 5,718,529 

Crease and tallow 7,322,970 

Hats and caps 6,464,058 

Hosiery 9,899,540 



Iron and steel ^22,219,219 

Jewelry 5,340,806 

Lard 14,758,718 

Leather, tanned and curried. 32,939,670 

Liquors, malt 35.392,677 

Lumber, sawed and planed. . 22,430,676 

Malt 9,874,098 

Marble-work 10,189,267 

Mixed textiles 13,376,380 

Musical instruments 8,084, 1 54 

Paints 9,455.900 

Paper 8,524,279 

Printing and publishing. . . . 27,885,376 

Shirts 11,014,820 

Shipbuilding 7,985,044 

Silk and satin goods 10,170,140 

Slaughtering and packing. . . . 43,096,138 
Sugar and molasses refined.. 71,237,051 

Tin and copper ware 9,858,768 

Tobacco and cigars 33,675,241 

Woollen goods 9,874,973 



RULING BY STATES. 373 

Total steam and water power in use, 454,143 horse-power. 
MINING.— Q\mnt\tY : 

Value. 

Iron ore 1,239,759 tons $3,499,132 

Minor minerals 1,623,011 

Total value of mineral products $5,122,143 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— KsWrod^ds in 1883, 6,723 
miles of line ; miles operated, 6,437 '■> ^ost, ^^670,307, 286 ; total 
jnvestment, ;^740,27 1,251. Length of canal lines, 608 miles; 
cost, ;^68,229,4i6. Steam craft, 1,230; tonnage, ' 358,445 ; 
value, ;^25, 708,650. Sail craft, 2,984; tonnage, 623,681 ; value, 
^15,592,000. Canal boats, barges and flats, 5,944; total tonnage, 
;^i,oo6,ioi ; value, ;^6,963,395. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^2,432,66i, 378; ofpersonal property, ^351,021,189. State 
taxation (1882), rate 32.5 cents on ^100, ;^7,690,4i6 ; county 
taxation, ^6,160,119; city and town, ^42,352,053. State debt 
(1883) net, and all funded, ^^6,385, 356; county, city and town 
debts, $211,186,582. 

GOVERNMENT— Csipital, Albany. Governor elected for 
three years. Salary, $10,000. The other State officers are: 
Lieutenant-Governor, three years, salary, $5,000; Secretary of 
State, two years, $5,000; Treasurer, two years, $5,000; Comp- 
troller, two years, $6,000; Attorney-General, two years, $5,000; 
Superintendent Public Instruction, three years, $5,000; Adjutant- 
General, three years, $3,000; State Librarian, three years, $2,500; 
State Engineer, two years, $5,000; Superint-endent of Insur- 
ance, three years, $7,000. 

The Legislature is composed of 32 Senators and 128 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are elected for two years ; Representatives 
for one year. Salary of a Legislator, $1,500 a year and 10 
cents mileage. Legislature meets annually on first Tuesday in 
January. No limit to length of session. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Asso- 
ciate Justices, elected by the people for fourteen years. Salary 
of Chief Justice, $7,500 ; of Associate Justices, $7,000. 



374 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Representatives in Congress, 34 ; Presidential electors, 36. 
POLITICS for twelve years : 





Dem. 


Rep. 


Grbk. 


1872 President . . 


• 387,279 


440,759 




1874 Governor, . . 


. 416,391 


366,074 




1876 


. 519,831 


489,031 




1876 President.. . 


. 522,043 


489,225 




1878 Sup. Judge. 


• 356,451 


391,112 


75,133 


1880 President. .. 


• 534,511 


555,544 


12,373 


1882 Governor. . . 


• 535,347 


341,523 


26,602 


1883 Sec. of State 


• 427,491 


446,088 


7,066 



Tern. 
'1.168 



18,205 



Maj. 
53,480 R. 

50,317 D- 
30,800 D. 
32,818 D. 
34,661 R. 
21,033 R. 
193,824 D. 

18,597 R. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 




NAME. — " Fort Charles, the Carolina, so called in honor of 
Charles IX. of France, first gave a name to the country, a 
century before it was occupied by the English. The name re- 
mained, though the early colony perished." Bancroft, vol. i., p. 
62. Popular names, " Old North State " and " Turpentine 
State." 

^Z>J//55/6>iV.— Ratified the Constitution, Nov. 21, 1789. 

AREA. — Square miles, 48,580; acres, 31,091,200; persons to 
a square rnile, 28.81. 

POPULATION 2ind rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 393,751 

1800 478,103 

1810 555,500 

1820 638,829 

1830 737,987 



Per cent, of 
increase. 



Census. Pop. 

1840 753,419 

21.4 1850 869,039 

[6.1 i860 992,622 

15.0 I 1870. . 1,071,361 

15-5 1 1880 1,399,750 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
2.0 

15.3 
14.2 

7.9 
30.6 



RULING BY STATES. 
1880 by Classes. 



375 



Male 687,908 Native. . . 1,396,008 

Female. ..711,842 Foreign.. 3,742 

Dwellings 264,305 

Families 270,994 

Voters — Males over 21 294,750 



White.... 867,242 Chinese i 

Black.... 531,277 Indians., ..1,230 

Persons to a dwelling 5.30 

" " family 5.17 

Natural militia, 18-44 241,140 



By Couftties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Alamance 14,613 

Alexanckir 8,355 

Alleghany 5,486 

Anson i7,994 

Ashe 14,437 

Beaufort 1 7^474 

■Bertie 16,399 

Bladen 16,158 

Brunswick 9,389 

Buncombe 21,909 

Burke 12,809 

Cabarrus 14,964 

Caldwell 10,291 

Camden 6,274 

Carteret 9,784 

Caswell 17,825 

Catawba 14,946 

Chatham 23,453 

Cherokee 8,182 

Chowan 7,900 

Clay 3,316 

Cleaveland ; 16,571 

■Columbus 14,439 

Craven 19,729 

Cumberland 23,836 

Currituck 6,476 

Dare 3,243 

Davidson 20,333 

Davie 11,096 

Duplin 18,773 

Edgecombe 26,181 

Forsyth 18,070 

Franklin 20,829 

Gaston 14,254 

Gates 8,897 

Graham 2,335 

Granville 31,286 

Greene 10,037 

Guilford 23,585 

Halifax 30,300 

Harnett 10,862 

Haywood 10,271 

Henderson 10,281 

Hertford ",843 

Hyde 7,765 

Iredell 22,675 

Jackson 7,343 



1870. 
11,874 
6,868 

3,691 
12,428 

9.573 

13,011 

12,950 

12,831 

7,754 

15.412 

9.777 

11,954 

8,476 

5,361 

9,010 

16,081 

10,984 

19,723 

8,080 

6,450 

2,461 

12,696 

8,474 

20,516 

17,03s 

5,131 

2,778 

17,414 

9,620 

15,542 

22,970 

13,050 

14,134 

12,602 

7,724 



24,831 
8,687 

21,736 

20,408 
8,895 
7,921 
7,706 
9,273 
6,445 

16,931 
6,683 



i860. 
11,852 
6,022 

3,590 
13,664 

14,766 

14,310 

",995 

8,406 

12,654 

9,237 

10,546 

7,497 

5,343 

8,186 

16,215 

10,729 

19,101 

9,166 

6,842 



12,348 
8,597 
16,268 
16,369 
7,415 



16,601 
8,494 
15,784 
17,376 
12,692 
14,107 
9.307 
8,443 



23,396 
7,925 

20,056 

19,442 
8,039 
5,801 

10,448 
9»504 
7,732 

15,347 
5,515 



Counties. , 1880. 

Johnston 23,461 

Jones 7,491 

Lenoir 15, 344 

Lincoln 11,061 

McDowell 9,836 

Macon 8,064 

Madison 12,810 

Martin 13,140 

Mecklenburg 34,^75 

Mitchell 9,435 

Montgomery 9,374 

Moore 16,821 

Nash 17,731 

New Hanover 21,376 

Northampton 20,032 

Onslow 9,829 

Orange 23,698 

Pamlico 6,323 

Pasquotank 10,369 

Pender 12,468 

Perquimans 9,466 

Person 13,7^9 

Pitt 21,794 

Polk 5,062 

Randolph 20,836 

Richmond 18,245 

Robeson 23,880 

Rockingham 21,744 

Rowan 19,965 

Rutherford 15,198 

Sampson 22,894 

Stanley 10,505 

Stokes 15,353 

Surry 15,302 

Swain 3,784 

Transylvania 5,34o 

Tyrrell 4,545 

Union 18,056 

Wake 47,939 

Warren 22,619 

Washington 8,928 

Watauga 8,t6o 

Wayne 24,951 

Wilkes 19,181 

Wilson 16,064 

Yadkin 12,420 

Yancey 7,694 



1870. 


i860. 


16,897 


15,656 


5,002 


5,730 


10,434 


10,220 


9,573 


8,195 


7,592 


7,120 


6,615 


6,004 


8,192 


5,908 


9.647 


10,195 


24,299 


17,374 


4,705 
7,487 




7,649 


12,040 


11,427 


11,077 


11,687 
21,715 


27,978 


14,749 


13,372 


7,569 


8,856 


17,507 


16,947 


8,131 


8,940 


7.945 


7,238 


11,170 


11,221 


17,276 


16,080 


4,319 


4,043 


17,551 


16,793 


12,882 


11,009 


16,262 


i5,,489 


15,708 


16,476 


16,810 


14,589 


13,121 


11,573 


16,436 


16,624 


8,315 


7,801 


11,208 


10,402 


11,252 


10,380 


3,536 
4,173 




4,944 


12,217 


11,202 


35,617 


28,627 


17,768 


15,726 


6,516 


6,357 


5,287 


4,957 


18,144 


14,905 


15,539 


14,749 


12,258 


9,720 


10.697 


10,714 


5,909 


8.655 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 9; instructors, 81 ; students, 1,145. 

Public schools, 6,161; value of school property, ;^248,oi5; 
teachers, 6,266; teachers' salaries, ;^328,7I7; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^ 5 5 3,464; expended for same, ;^ 3 8 3, 709; school age, 
'6-21 years; school population (1882), 463,160; pupils enrolled 
(1882), 263,071; average attendance (1882), 132,546; average 
length of school year in 1882, 62.5 days. 



376 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 367,890, 
being 38.3 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Per- 
sons over ten years who cannot write: native white, 191,913; 
foreign white, 119; colored, Chinese and Indians, 271,943 ; total, 
463,975, being 48.3 per cent, of all persons over ten years of 
age. 

Daily papers, 13; others, 127; total, 140. Circulation, 104,- 
846. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 360,937; 
in professional and personal services, 69,321; in trade and 
transportation, 15,966; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

33,963- 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 157,609; total acres in 
farms, 22,363,558; improved acres, 6,481,191 ; average size of 
farms, 142 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 135,793,602; 
value of implements, ;$6,078,476 ; total value of farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ^51,729,611. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 2,421 bush. 

Buckwheat 44,668 " 

Butler 7,212,507 lbs. 

Cheese 57>38o " 

Cotton 389,598 bales. 

Hay 93,711 tons. 

Indian Corn 28,019,839 bush. 

Milk 446,798 gal. 

Oats 3,838,068 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products ^9035513 

Potatoes, Irish..- 722,773 bush. 

" sweet 4,576,148 " 

Rice 5,609,191 lbs. 

Rye 285,160 bush. 

Tobacco 26,986,213 lbs. 

Wheat 3>397,-393 bush. 

Wool 917,756 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 133,686 

Mules and asses 81,871 

Working oxen 50,188 

Milch cows 232,133 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^22,414,659 



Number. 

Other cattle 375 J05 

Sheep 461,638 

Swine 1,453,541 



MANUFACTURES.— ^Mmh^x of establishments, 3,802 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^ 1 3,045,639; hands employed, 18,109; wages paid, 
;^2,740,768 ; value of materials, :^ 13,090,937; value of products, 
;^2o,095,037. 



RULING BY STATES. 377 



The principal manufactures are : 



Cotton goods ^2,5 54,482 

Flour and mill products .... 6,462,806 

Leather, tanned 367,920 

Lumber, sawed 2,672,796 



Tar and turpentine $1,758,488 

Tobacco 2,215,154 

Woollen goods 303,163 



Total steam and water power in use, 45,088 horse-power. 
J//iV7A^a— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $118,953 

Silver 140 

Coal, bituminous 350 tons. 400 

Iron ore 3)276 " 5, 102 

Copper ingots 1,640,000 lbs. 350,000 

Minor minerals 793855 

Total value of mineral products $554)45o 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^Wrod^ds in 1883, 1,578 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,322; cost, ^43,085,123; total 
investment, ;^44, 87 1,1 70. Length of canal lines, 13 miles; cost, 
;^ 300,000. This does not include 40 miles of drainage and 
lumber canals. Steam craft, 52; tonnage, 3,851; value, ;^205,- 
700. Sail craft, 289; tonnage, 9,158; value, ;^228,925. Flats, 
144; tonnage, 8,940; value, ;^36,8oo. 

FINANCIAL CONBITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^i04,742,9ii ; of personal property, ;^62,995, 728. State 
taxation (1883), rate 28 cents on ;^ioo, ;^ 700,000 ; county taxa- 
tion, ;^986,956; city and town, ;^222,273. State debt (1883) 
funded, ;^i 1,270,345 ; unfunded, ;^4,i5 1,700; county, city and 
town debts, ^2,487,990. 

GOVERNMENT.— CRpitSil, Raleigh. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^3,ooo. The other State officers — terms 
four years — are: Lieutenant-Governor; Secretary of State, 
salary, ;^ 2,000 ; Treasurer, ^3,000; Auditor, ^1,500 ; Attorney- 
General, ;^i,ooo; Superintendent Public Instruction, ;^ 1,500; 
Adjutant-General, ^600; Commissioner of Agriculture, ;^i,- 
200 ; Commissioner of Lands ; State Librarian, ;^750. 

The Legislature is composed of 50 Senators and 120 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $4 a 
day and ten cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on 
Wednesday after first Monday in January. Session limited to 
60 days. 



378 BUIIJ3ING AND RULING THE RKrUBLlC. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two Asso- 
ciate Justices, elected by the people for eight years. Salary of 
each, ^2,500. 

Representatives in Congress, 9; Presidential electors, 11. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Maj. 

1872 President 9^363 67,489 23,874 R. 

1872 Governor 98,630 96,731 1,899 R, 

1876 I'resident 108,419 125,427 17,008 D. 

1876 Governor 109,990 123,198 13,208 D. 

1880 PresidcMit 115,878 124,204 8,326 D. 

1880 Governor "5,590 121,827 6,2370. 

1882 Cong, at Large 111,242 111,756 SH D. 



OHIO. 




NAME. — From the river and southern boundary. By some, 
the Indian word Ohio is rendered, " beautiful." A kindred 
word in the Wyandotte dialect signifies " something to eat." 
Popular name, '* Buckeye State." 

ADMISSION.— Act of admission dated April 30, 1802; 
actual admission, Nov. 29, 1802. 

AREA. — Square miles, 40,760 ; acres, 26,086,400 ; persons to 
■a square mile, 78.46. 

POPULATION and rate of increase : 



'Census. Pop. 

1800 45^365 

1810 230,760 

1820 581,295 

1830 937,903 

1840 1,519,467 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

408.6 

151-9 

61.3 

62.0 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1S50.- 1,980,329 30.3 

i860 2,339,511 18.1 

1870 2,665,260 13.9 

1880 3,198,062 19.9 



RULING BY STATES 



379 



1880 by Classes. 

Males. ... 1,613,936 Native. .. .2,803,119 White.. 

Females. .1,584,126 Foreign.... 394,943 Black.. 

Dwellings 586,664 Persons 

Families 641,907 



.3,117,920 Chinese.... 112 
79,900 Indians.... 130 

to a dwelling 5,45 

family 4. 



Voters — Males over 21 826,577 Natural militia, 18-44 647,092 



By Counties fo7' three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 24,005 

Allen 31,314 

Ashland 23,883 

Ashtabula 37, ^39 

Athens 28,411 

Auglaize 25,444 

Belmont 49,638 

Brown 32,911 

Butler 42,579 

Carroll 16,416 

Champaign 27,817 

Clarke 4i;948 

Clermont 36,713 

Clinton 24,756 

Columbiana...., 48,602 

Coshocton 26,642 

Crawford 30,583 

Cuyahoga 196,943 

Darke 40,496 

Defiance 22,515 

Delaware 27,381 

Erie 32,640 

Fairfield 34,284 

J^ayette 20,364 

Franklin 86,797 

Fulton 21,053 

Gallia 28,124 

Geauga 14,251 

Greene 3^,349 

Guernsey 27,197 

Hamilton 313,374 

Hancock 27,784 

Hardin 27,023 

Harrison 20,456 

Henry 20,585 

Highland 30,281 

Hocking 21,126 

Holmes 20,776 

Huron.i. 31,609 

Jackson 23,686 

Jefferson 33,oi8 

Knox 27,431 

Lake 16,326 

Lawrence 39,068 



1870. 
20,750 
23,623 
21,933 
32,517 
23,768 
20,041 

39,714 
30,802 
39,912 
14,491 
24,188 
32,070 
34,268 
21,914 
38,299 
23,600 
25,556 

132,110 
32,278 
15,719 
25,175 
28,188 
31,138 
17,170 
63,019 
17,789 
25,545 
14,190 
28,038 
23,838 

260,370 

23,847 
18,714 
18,682 
14,028 
29,133 
17,925 
18,177 
28,532 

21,759 
29,188 

26,333 
15,935 
31,380 



i860. 
20,309 
19,185 
22,951 
31,814 
21,364 
17,187 
36,398 
29,958 
35,840 
15,738 
22,698 
25,300 
33,034 
21,461 
32,836 
25,032 
23,881 
78,033 
26,009 
11,886 
23,902 
24,474 
30,538 
15,935 
50,361 
14,043 
22,043 

15,817 
26,197 
24,474 
216,410 
22,886 
13,570 
19,110 
8,901 
27,773 
17,057 
20,589 
29,616 
17,941 
26,115 
27,735 
15,576 
23,249 



Counties. 1880. 

Licking 40,450 

Logan 26,267 

Lorain 35,526 

Lucas ^1,1)11 

Madison 20,129 

Mahoning 42,871 

Marion 20,565 

Medina 21,453 

Meigs 32,325 

Mercer 21,808 

Miami 36,158 

Monroe 26,496 

Montgomery 78,550 

Morgan 20,074 

Morrow 19,072 

Muskingum 49,774 

Noble 21,138 

Ottawa 19,762 

Paulding 13,485 

Perry 28,218 

Pickaway 27,415 

Pike 17,927 

Portage 27,500 

Preble 24,533 

Putnam 23,713 

Richland 36,306 

Ross 40,307 

Sandusky 32,057 

Scioto 33,511 

Seneca 36,947 

Shelby 24,137 

Stark 64,031 

Summit 43,788 

Trumbull 44,880 

Tuscarawas 40,198 

Union 22,375 

Van Wert 23,028 

Vinton 17,223 

Warren 28,392 

Washington 43,244 

Wayne 40,076 

Williams 23,821 

Wood 34,022 

Wyandot 22,395 



1870. 


i860. 


35,756 


37,011 


23,028 


20,996 


30,308 


29,744 


46,722 


25,831 


15,633 


13,015 


31,001 


25,894 


16,184 


15,490 


20,092 


22,517 


31,465 


26,534 


17,254 


14,104 


32,740 


29,959 


25,779^ 


25.741 


64,006 


52,230 


20,363 


22,119 


18,583 


20,445 


44,886 


44,416 


19,949 


20,751 


13,364 


7,016 


8,544 


4,945 


18,453 


19,678 


24,875 


23,469 


15,447 


13,643 


24,584 


24,208 


21,809 


21,820 


17,081 


12,808 


32,516 


31,158 


37,097 


35,071 


25,503 


21,429 


29,302 


24,297 


30,827 


30,868 


20,748 


17,493 


52,508 


42,978 


34,674 


27,344 


38,659 


30,656 


33.840 


32,463 


18,730 


16,507 


15,823 


10,238 


15,027 


13,631 


26,689 


26,902 


40,609 


36,268 


35,116 


32,483 


20,991 


16,633 


24,596 


17,886 


18,553 


15,596 



EDUCATION.— QoW^^^^, 35 ; instructors, 363; students, 6,- 
186. 

Public schools, 16,473 ;. value of school property, ;^2 1,643,5 15 ; 
teachers, 16,875 J teachers' salaries (1882), ;^5, 376,087; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^i 1,085,315 ; expended for samel (1882), ;$8,- 
820,914; school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 
1,081,321 ; pupils enrolled (1882), 751,101 ; average attendance, 
{1882), 483,232; average length of school year in 1882, 155 
days. 



380 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 86,754, being 3.6 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 83,183; foreign white, 
32,308; colored, Chinese and Indians, 16,356; total, 131,847, 
being 5.5 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 56; others, 720; total, 'j'j^. Circulation, i,- 

885,347. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 397,495 ; 
in professional and personal service, 250,371 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 104,315 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
242,294. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 247,189; total acres in 
farms, 24,529,226; improved acres, 18,081,091 ; average size of 
farms, 99 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 1,1 27,497,35 3 ; 
value of implements, ;^30,52i,i8o; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^i 56,777,1 52. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 1,707,129 bush. 

Buckwheat 280,229 " 

Butter 67,634,263 lbs. 

Cheese 2,170,245 " 

Hay 2,210,923 tons. 

Hops 5,510 lbs. 

Indian Corn 111,877,124 bush. 

Milk 46,801,537 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats.. 28,664,505 bush. 

Orchard products. . . . ^3,576,242 

Potatoes, Irish 12,719,215 bush. 

" sweet 239,578 " 

Rye , . 389,221 bush. 

Tobacco 34>735.235 lbs. 

Wheat 46,014,869 bush. 

Wool 25,003,756 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 736,478 

Mules and asses 19,481 

Working oxen %,ii(i 

Milch cows. . 767,043 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^103,707,730 



Number. 

Other cattle 1,084,917 

Sheep 4,902,486 

Swine 3»i4i,333 



MANUFA CTURES. — Number of establishments, 20,699 ; cap- 
ital invested, ;^ 188,939,614; hands employed, 183,609; wages 
paid, ;^62, 103,800; value of material, ;^2i 5,334,258 ; value of 
products, ^348,298,390. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements. . . .^15,479,825 

Boots and shoes 4,167,476 

Bakery products 3,805,506 



Brick and tile ^3,481,291 

Carriages and wagons 10,043,404 

Cars 3,429,996 



RULING BY STATES. 



381 



Cheese and butter.. $2,756,976 

Clothing, men's 20,008,398 

Cooperage 3,486,032 

Flour and mill products. . . . 38,950,264 

Machinery 18,242,325 

Furniture 6,865,027 

Iron and steel 34,918,360 

Leather, tanned and curried . 8,243,900 

Liquors, malt and distilled. . 15,817,750 

Lumber, planed and sawed. 16,826,127 



Marble work $2,240,160 

Oils 4,953,808 

Paper 5,108,194 

Printing and publishing. . , . 6,579,565 

Saddlery 3,1 70,41 3 

Sashes and doors 4,043,844 

Slaughtering and packing.. . 19,231,297 

Tin and copper ware. . . ... 3,230,208 

Tobacco and cigars 9,396,940 



Total steam and water power in use, 261,143 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qu3.ntitY : 

Value. 

Coal, bituminous 5,932,853 tons $7,629,488 

Iron ore 198,835 " 448,000 

Total mineral products 8,077,488 

Add petroleum 24,313 barrels at 42 galls. @ 2^ cents a gal. 22,977 

Grand total of all mineral products $8,100,465 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— ^dJiXvod^ds in 1883, 7,968 
miles of line; miles operated, 7,522 ; cost, ;^6i6,ii4,849; total 
expenditure, $662,S42,^gS. Length of canal lines, 674 miles ; 
slack-water lines, 75 miles: cost of both, ;^ 15,370,267. Steam 
craft, 236; tonnage, 73,525 ; value, ;^3,6i2,700. Sail craft, 196; 
tonnage, 56,275 ; value, ;^i,4o6,875. Canal boats, flats and 
barges, 764; tonnage, 116,744; value, $476,825. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), $1,116,681,655 ; personal property, $518,229,079. State 
taxation (1883), rate 29 cents on $100, $4,553,242; county tax- 
ation, $6,131,502 ; city, town and village, $15,144,667. State debt 
(1883), funded, $4,901,665 ; county, city and town debts, $43,- 
021,454. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Columbus. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, $4,000. The other State officers are : Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, two years, salary $800 ; Secretary of State, two 
years, $2,000 ; Treasurer, two years, $3,000 ; Auditor, four years, 
$3,000; Attorney-General, two years, $1,500; Adjutant-General, 
two years, $2,000; Commissioner of Common Schools, three 
years, $2,000; Superintendent of Insurance, three years, $2,000 ; 
Railroad Commissioner, two years, $2,000; Secretary Board of 
Agriculture (by Board), $2,000 ; State Librarian, two years, 
$1,500; Statistical Commissioner, two years, $2,000. 



382 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



The Legislature is composed of 33 Senators and 105 Repre- 
sentatives, all selected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, 
$600 a year and mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first 
Monday in January, but may hold adjourned sessions. No limit 
to length of session. 

State and Congressional elections held on second Tuesday in 
October. Presidential elections on Tuesday after the first 
Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four As- 
sociate Justices, elected by the people for a term of five years. 
Salary of each, ;^3,500, increased to ^5,000 for next incumbents. 

Representatives in Congress, 21 ; Presidential electors, 23. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 





Rep. 


Dem. 


Grbk. 


Tern. 


Mai. 


1872 President. . . 


...281,852 


245,484 




2,100 


36,368 R. 


1873 Governor. . . 


• .•213,837 


214,654 







817 D. 


1875 " 


...297,817 


292,273 




2,593 


5.544 K^ 


1876 President. . . 


...330,698 


323,182 







7,516 R. 


1877 Governor. . . 


...249,105 


271,625 


29,201 





22,520 D. 


1879 " 


. . .336,261 


319,232 


9,072 




17,029 R. 


1 880 President... 


...375,048 


340,821 


6,456 





34,227 R. 


1 88 1 Governor. . . 


•••312,735 


288,426 


6,330 




24,309 R. 


1883 " 


...347.064 


359,593 


2,785 


8,361 


12,529 D, 






OREGON 










NAME. — From the river, called by Carver, Oregon or Ore- 
gan, i e., " River of the West." According to others from the 
Spanish orega7io, wild marjoram, abundant on the Pacific coast. 

ADMISSION.— Oxg^mz^A as a Territory, Aug. 14, 1848; 
act of admission, and actual admission, Feb. 14, 1859. 



RULING BY STATES. 38,^ 

AREA. — Square miles, 94,560; acres, '60,518,400; persons to 
a square mile, 1.85. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Per cent of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1850 13,294 

i860 52,465 294.6 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1870 90,923 73-3 

1880 174,768 92.2 



1880 by Classes. 

Male. .. .103,381 Native 144,265 White 163,075 Chinese 9,512 

Female.. 71,387 Foreign. ... 30,503 Black.... 487 Indians 1,694 

Dwellings 32,374 Persons to a dwelling 5.4 

Families 33,468 " " family 5.22 

Voters — Males over 21 59,629 Natural militia, 18-44 48,783 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. i88c. 

Baker 4,6i6 

Benton 6,403 

Clackamas 9,260 

Clarke 

Clatsop 7,222 

Columbia 2,042 

Coos 4,834 

Curry 1,208 

Douglas 9,596 

Grant 4,303 

Jackson 8,154 

Josephine 2^,485 



1870. • 
2,804 

4,584 

5,993 


i860. 

3,074 
3,466 


1,255 

863 

1,644 


498 
532 
445 


504 
6,066 


393 
3,203 


2.251 
4,778 
1,204 


3,736 
1,623 



Counties. 1880. 

Lane 9,411 

Lewis 

Linn 12,676 

Marion 14,576 

Multnomah 25,203 

Polk 6,601 

Tillamook 970 

Umatilla 9,607 

Umpqua 

Union 6,650 

Wasco ii,i2o 2,509 

Washington 7,082 4,261 2,801 



1870. 


i860. 


6,426 


4,780 


8,717 


6,77^. 


9,965 


7,08a 


1,510 


4,150. 


4,701 


3,625 


408 


95 


2,916 






1,250 


2,552 





Lake 2,804 ' Yam Hill 7,945 5,oi2 3,245 

EDUCATION. — Colleges, 7; instructors, 50 ; students, 1,187. 

Public schools, 1,068; value of school property, ;^249,o87; 
teachers, 1,141; teachers' salaries (1882), ^249,378; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^340,932 ; expended for same (1882), $1^6,- 
961 ; school age, 4-20 years; school population (1882), 65,216; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 37,743; average attendance (1882), 27,- 
347; average length of school year in 1882, 90.6 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 5,376, being 4.1 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write : native white, 3,433 ; foreign white, 910; col- 
ored, Chinese and Indians, 3,080; total, 7,423, being 5.7 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 7; others, 6j \ total, 74. Circulation, 81,078. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 27,091 ; 
in professional and personal services, 16,645 5 ^^^ trade and trans- 
portation, 6,149; ^^ manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 17,- 
458. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 16,217; total acres in 



384 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

farms, 4,214,712; improved acres, 2,198,645; average size of 
farms, 260 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^56,9o8,575 ; 
value of implements, ;^2,956,I73 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, $13,234,548. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 920,977 bush. 

Buckwheat 6,215 " 

Butter 2,443,725 lbs. 

Cheese 153.198 " 

Hay 266,187 tons. 

Hops 244,371 lbs. 

Indian Corn . 126,862 bush. 

Milk 227,540 galls. 

Live- Stock. 

Number. 

Horses 124,107 

Mules and asses 2,804 

Working oxen 4jI32 

Milch cows 59.549 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^13,808,392 

MANUFA CTURES.—'^wmhtx of establishments, i ,080 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^6,3I2,056; hands employed, 3,473; wages paid, 
$1,667,046; value of material, $6,954,436; value of products, 
$10,931,232. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products ^3.475.531 

Lumber, sawed 2,030,463 

Saddlery 385.35° 



Quantity. 

Oats..* 4,385,650 bush. 

Orchard products ^583,663 

Potatoes, Irish I.359.930 bush. 

Rye 13.305 " 

Tobacco 1 7.325 lbs. 

Wheat 7,480,010 bush. 

Wool 5, 718,524 lbs. 



Number. 

Other cattle . . . c 352,561 

Sheep 1,083,162 

Swine 156,222 



Tin and copperware. J5531 1,650 

Woollen goods 549.030 



Total steam and water power in use, 13,589 horse-power. 
7J//A77\^G'.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold ^1,097,701 

Silver 27,793 

Coal, bituminous 43.205 tons 97,810 

Iron ore 6,972 " 4,669 

Value of precious metals, $1,125,494; of non-precious. .$102,479 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K2i\\ro2ids in 1883, 880 
miles of line; miles operated, 734; cost, $45,928,924; total in- 
vestment, $55,213,550. The only canal line is the Willamette 
ship canal, three-quarters of a mile long and costing $600,000. 
Steam craft, 89 ; tonnage, 31,371 ; value, $2,177,000. Sail craft, 
38; tonnage, 7,041; value, $176,025. Barges and flats, 100; 
value, $26,600, 



RULING BY STATES. 385 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— AssQssQd value of real and 
personal estate (1882), $S9,^S^y^7S' State taxation (1882), rate 
55 cents on ;^ 100, 1^258,000; county taxation, $^^^,6gg] city, 
town and village, ;^ 195, 01 4. State debt (1882), all funded, ;^304,- 
020; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^337,i26. 

GOVERNMENT.— Q^^'iisX, Salem. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^ 1,500. The other State officers are: 
Secretary of State (four years), salary, ;^i,500; Treasurer (four 
years), ^^800; Superintj^ndent Public Instruction (four years), 
^1,500; State Librarian (two years), ;^500. 

The Legislature is composed of 30 Senators and 60 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators are chosen for four years ; Representatives 
for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $'^ a day and 15 cents 
mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first Monday in 
January. Session limited to 40 days. 

State election held on first Monday in June of every second 
year. Presidential election on Tuesday after first Monday in 
November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two Asso- 
ciate Justices, elected by the people for a term of six years. 
Salaiy of each, ;^2,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, i ; Presidential electors, 3. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Ind. Maj. 

1872 President 7,753 11,818 3,065 R. 

1874 Governor 9j7I3 9,163 6,532 55° D. 

1876 President 14,1.58 15,208 508 1,050 R. 

1878 Governor 16,063 16,009 ',353 54 D. 

1880 President l9,95o 20,618 245 668 R. 

1882 Governor 20,069 21,481 1,312 R. 

25 



386 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 




PENNSYLVANIA. 



NAME. — Perm's woods (Lat. sylva, a wood). Named in 
honor of Penn, the grantee and founder. Popular name, " The 
Keystone State." 

^Z^il//55/<9A^.— Ratified the Constitution, Dec. 12, 1787. 

AREA, — Square miles, 44,985 ; acres, 28,790,400; persons to 
a square mile, 95.21. 

POPULATION diVid rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1790 434,373 

1800 602,365 

1810 810,091 

1820 1,047,507 

1830 1,348,233 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

38.6 
34-4 
293 
28.7 



Census. Pop. 

1840 1,724,033 

1850 2,311,786 

i860 2,906,215 

1870 3,521,951 

1880 4,282,891 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
27.8 
34.0 

25-7 
21. 1 
21.6 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 2,136,655 Native .... 3,695,062 

Female. .2,146,236 Foreign.... 587,829 

Dwellings 776,124 

Families 840,45 2 

Voters — Males over 21 i ,094,284 



White 4,197,016 Chinese.. 156 

Black .... 85,535 Indians. . 184 

Persons to a dwelling 5.52 

** " family 5. 1 

Natural militia, 18-44 853,972 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 32,455 

Allegheny ™ 355,869 

Armstrong 47,641 

Beaver 39,605 

Bedford 34.929 

Berks 122,597 

B!a:r 52^740 

Bradford 50,541 

Bucks 68,656 

Butler 52,536 

Cambria 46,811 

Cameron 5.i59 

Carbon 3^,923 

Centre 37.022 

Chester 83,481 

Clarion 40,328 

Clearfield 43,408 

Clinton 26,278 

Columbia 32,409 

Crawfoid 68,607 

Cumberland 45,977 



1870. 

30.315 
262,204 
43.382 
36,148 
29,635 
106,701 
38,051 
5y,204 

64,336 

36,510 
36,569 
4,273 
28,144 
34,418 
77.805 
26,537 
25,741 

23,211 

28,766 

63,832 

43,9'2 



i860. 
28,006 
178,831 
35,797 
29,140 
26,736 
93,818 
27,829 
48,734 
63,578 
35,594 
29,155 



21,033 
27,000 
74,578 
24,988 
18,759 
17.723 
25,c65 
48,755 
40,098 



Counties. 1! 

Dauphin 76, 

Delaware 56, 

Elk 12, 

Erie 74 

Fayette 58, 

Forest 4, 

Franklin 49, 

Fulton 10, 

Greene 28, 

Huntingdon 33, 

Indiana 40, 

Jefferson 27, 

Juniata 18, 

Lackawanna 89 

Lancaster 139, 

Lawrence 33, 

Lebanon 38, 

Lehigh 65 

Luzerne 133, 

Lycoming.. 57 

McKean 42 



lOl 

800 
688 
842 
385 
855 
149 
273 
954 
527 
935 
227 
,269 

447 
312 
476 

969 
065 
486 
565 



1870. 
60,740 
39,403 

8,488 

65,973 
43.284 

4,010 
45,365 

9,360 
25,887 
3^,251 
36,138 
21,656 
17,390 

121,340 
27,298 
34.096 
56,796 

160,915 

47.626 

8,825 



i860. 
46,756 
30,597 

5,915 

49,432 

39,909 

898 

42,126 

9,131 
24,343 
28,100 
33,687 
18,270 
16,986 

116,314 
22,999 
31,831 
43.753 
90,244 
37.399 
8,859 



RULING BY STATES. 



387 



By Cotmties for three Censuses- 



-Continued. 

Counties. i88o. 1870. i860. 

Somerset 33, "o 28,226 26,778 

Sullivan 8,073 6,191 5,637 

Susquehanna 40,354 37,523 36,267 

Tioga 45,814 35,097 31,044 

Union 16,905 15,565 14,145 

Venango 43,670 47.925 25,043 

Warren 27,981 23,897 19,190 

Washington 55, 418 48,483 46,805 

Wayne 33,513 33, 188 32,239 

Westmoreland 78,036 58,719 53,736 

Wyoming 15,598 14,585 12,540 

York 87,841 76,134 68,200 



Counties. 1880. 1870 i860. 

Mercer 56,161 49>977 36,856 

Mifflin 19,577 17,508 16,340 

Monroe 20,175 18,362 16,758 

Montgomery : 96,494 81,612 70,500 

Montour 15,468 15, 344 i3,o53 

Northampton 70,312 61,432 47,904 

Northumberland 53,123 4i,444 28,922 

Perry 27,522 25,447 22,793 

Philadelphia 847,170 674,022 565,529 

Pike 9,663 8,436 7,155 

Potter 13,797 11,265 ",470 

Schuylkill 129,974 116,428 89,510 

Snyder i7,797 15,606 15,035 

EDUCATION. — Colleges, 26; instructors, 328; students, 

4434. 

Public schools, 18,6*16 ; value of school property, ;^25,9I9,397 ; 
teachers, 19,388; teachers' salaries (1882), ^4,863,718; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^8, 1 26,827; expended for same, ;^8,263,- 
245; school age, 6-21 years; school population, 1,422,377; 
pupils enrolled, 945,315 ; average attendance, 611,317; average 
length of school year in 1882, 153.78 days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 146,138, being 
4.6 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 123,206 ; foreign white, 
8^j775 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 18,033; total, 228,014, 
being 7.1 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 100; others, 885; total, 985. Circulation, 

5,517,343. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 301,112; 
in professional and personal service, 446,713 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 179,965 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
528,277. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 213,542; total acres in 
farms, 19,791,341; improved acres, 13,423,007; average size of 
farms, 93 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^975, 689,410; 
value of implements, ;^35,473,037 ; total value of all farnt^ pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 1 29,760,476. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 438,100 bush. 

Buckwheat 3»593»326 ** 

Butter 79,336,012 lbs. 

Cheese 1,008,686 « 



Quantity. 

Hay 2,811,654 tons. 

Hops 36,99s lbs. 

Indian Corn 45,821,531 bush. 

Milk 36,540,540 galls. 



388 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Principal Products 

Quantity. | 

Oats 33,841,439 bush. 

Orchard products ^4,862,826 

Potatoes, Irish 16,284,819 bush. 

" sweet 184,142 " 



-Continued. 



Quantity. 

Rye 3,683,621 bush. 

Tobacco 36,943,272 lbs. 

Wheat 19,462,405 bush. 

Wool 8,470,273 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 
Number. 



Horses 533,587 

Mules and asses 22,914 

Working oxen ., 15,062 

Milch cows 854, 156 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June 



Number. 



Other cattle 861,019 

Sheep 1,776,598 

Swine 1,187,968 



1880 $84,242,877 



MANUFACTURES.— ^MmhQv of establishments, 31,232; 
capital invested, ;^474,5 10,993 ; hands employed, 387,072; 
wages paid, ;^ 134,05 5, 904; value of material, ;^465, 020,5 63 ; 
value of products, ;^744,8 18,445. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements. . . $3,686,212 

Boots and shoes 9,590,002 

Bakery products 8,448,474 

Brick and tile 4,813,153 

Carpets 14,304,660 

Carriages and wagons 4,760,723 

Cars 8,082,272 

Clothing, men's 23,821,887 

Coke 4,190,136 

Confectionery 3,564,934 

Cooperage 3,256,552 

Cotton goods 21,640,397 

Drugs 13,092,863 

Dyeing and finishing 6,259,852 

Flour and mill products... 41,522,662 

Machinery 35,029,673 

Furniture 7,588,229 

Glass 8,720,584 

Hardware 3,725,526 



Hosiery $8,935,147 

Iron and steel 145,576,268 

Iron pipe 8,418,975 

Leather, curried and tanned, 

etc.... 41,639,289 

Liquors,^alt and distilled.. 11,980,832 

Lumber, planed and sawed. 27,060,112 

Marble work 3,135,651 

Mixed textiles 20,882,764 

Paints 3,674,043 

Paper 5,355,912 

Printing and publishing. . . . 10,229,893 

Ship-building 6,689,471 

Slaughtering and packing. . 9,908,545 

Sugar and molasses, refined. 24,294,929 

Tin and copperware 5,442,555 

Tobacco and cigars 7,816,807 

Woollen goods 32,341,291 

Worsted goods 10,072,473 



Total steam and water power in use, 512,408 horse-power. 
JJffiV7A^6^.— Quantity : 



Ooal, anthracite 28,612,595 tons. 

Coal, bituminous 18,075,548 " 

Iron ore 1,820,561 " 

Zinc ore 20,459 " 

Copper ingots 214,736 lbs. 

Minor minerals 

Total mineral products ^^65,559,576 

To which add Petroleum, 24,224,646 barrels, @ 42 gal- 
lons per barrel, 1,017,435,132 gallons, @, 2^ cents 

a gallon for crude, equals ^^22,892,285 

Grand total of all mineral products ^88,451,861 



• Value. 

$42,116,500 

18,267,151 

4,318,999 

394,568 

36,256 

426,102 



RULING BY. STATES. 339 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES,— KdJiXvo^ds in 1883, 6,608 
miles of line; miles operated, 9,754; cost, ;^466,o5 8,385 ; 
total investment, ;^8o9,7 34,001. Length of canal lines in opera- 
tion, 629 miles; slack-water lines, 146 miles; cost, ;^ 3 7 ,.706,64 5. 
Steam craft, 416 ; tonnage, 1 16,601 ; value, ;^8,479,300. Sail craft, 
655 ; tonnage, 138,000; value, ;^3,429,975. Canal boats, barges 
and flats, 5,560; tonnage, 1,036,453; value, ;^4,968,ioo. 

FINANCIAL CONBITION— Assessed value of real estate, 
;^ 1, 540,007,95 7; of personal property, ;^ 143, 45 1,059. No State 
taxation on real estate. Amount of State taxation on personal 
property, rate 30 cents per ;^ioo, ;^437,7i6 for 1882; total State 
revenue from tax on corporations, licenses, etc., ;^6,346,540 ; 
county taxation, ;^4,6i2,i65 ; city, town and village taxation, 
^23,506,591. State debt (1883), net and funded, ^13,794,328; 
unfunded, ;^88o,7i9; county, city and town indebtedness, ;^93,- 

318,474. 

GO VERNMENT.—C2Lpit3i\, Harrisburg. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^ 10,000. The other State officers are: 
Lieutenant-Governor, four years, salary, ;^3,ooo; Secretary of 
State, four years, ^4,000 ; Treasurer, two years, ;^5,ooo; Auditor- 
General, three years, ;^3,ooo; Secretary Internal Affairs, four 
years, ;^ 3,000 ; Attorney-General, four years, ;^3,500; Adjutant- 
General, four years, ;^2,50o; Superintendent Board Public In- 
struction, four years, ;^2,500; Insurance Commissioner, three 
years, ;^3,000 ; State Librarian, four years, ;^i,8oo. 

The Legislature is composed of 50 Senators and 201 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^i,ooo for session of lOO 
days and 5 cents mileage. Ten dollars a day is allowed for an 
additional 50 days. Session limited to 150 days. Legislature 
meets biennially on first Tuesday in January. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salary, ^8,500, 
and six Associate Justices, salary of each, ;^8,ooo, all elected by 
the people for a term of twenty-one years. 

Representatives in Congress, 28 ; Presidential electors, 30. 



390 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



POLITICS for twelve years 



* Rep. 

1872 Governor 353>387 

1872 President 349»589 

1875 Governor 304.1 75 

1876 President 384,148 

1878 Governor 319,490 

1880 President 444,704 

1882 Governor 315.589 

1883 Auditor-General. .319,106 



Dem. 


Tem. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


317,760 


1.259 




35.627 R 


211,841 


1,630 




137.748 R 


292,145 


13.244 




12,030 R 


366,204 


1.318 


7.204 


17,944 R 


297.137 


3.759 


81,758 


22,353 R 


407,428 


1.939 


20,668 


37,276 R 


355.791 


5.196 


43,743 Ind. 


40,202 D 


302,031 


6,602 


4.452 Gbk 


. 17,075 R. 



RHODE ISLAND. 




*^?is*^.^»i«^^^-"==" 



NAME. — Probably so called from a fancied resemblance to 
the Island of Rhodes, in the Mediterranean. Some ally it to the 
German Roth or red island, others to Road or Roadstead 
Island, as being on or near harborage. Popular name " Little 
Rhody." 

^Z)J//S'5/6^iV:— Ratified the Constitution, May 29, 1790; 
the last State to do so. 

AREA. — Square miles, 1,085; acres, 694,400; persons to a 
square mile, 254.87. 

POPULATION ^xi^i rate of increase: 



Census. 
1790... 
1800. . . 
1810... 
1820. . . 
1830. . . 



Male 133,030 

Female.. .143,501 



Pop. 
68,825 
69,122 
76,931 
83.015 
97,199 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

0.4 
II. 2 

7-9 
17.0 



Census. Pop. 

1840 108,830 

1850 147.545 

i860 174,620 

1870 217,353 

1880 276,531 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
11.9 

35.5 
18.3 
24.4 
27.2 



1880 by Classes. 

Native 202,538 White . . . 269,939 Chinese 27 

Foreign... 73,993 Black... 6,488 Indians 77 



RULING BY STATES. 



391 



Dwellings 41,388 

Families 60,259 

Voters — Males over 21 76,898 



Persons to a dwelling 6.68 

" " family 4.59 

Natural militia, 18-44 57,8S4 



Counties. 1880. 

Bristol iIj394 

Kent 20,588 

Newport 24,180 



By Counties for three Censttses. 

1870. t86o. ' Counties. 1880. 

9,4^1 8,907 I Providence 197,874 

18,595 17,303 I Washington 22,495 

20,050 21,896 I 



1870. 
149,190 
20,097 



i860. 
07,799 
18,715 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, i ; instructors, 17; students, 270. 

Public schools, 850; value of school property, ;^ 1,895, 877; 
teachers, 902; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^4I7,553; receipts 
for school purposes, ;^54i,6o7; expended for same (1882), 
^591,836; school age, 5-15 years; school population (188.2), 
55,832; pupils enrolled (1882), 45,695; average attendance 
(1882), 29,390; average length of school session in 1882, 184 
days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 17,456, being 7.9 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write: native white, 4,261; foreign white, 
19,283; colored, Chinese and Indians, 1,249; total, 24,793, 
being 11.2 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 8; others, 36; total, 44. Circulation, 98,326. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 10,945 ; 
in professional and personal services, 24,657 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 15,217; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
66,160. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 6,216; total acres 
in farms, 514,813; improved acres, 298,486; average size of 
farms, 83 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^^25, 882,079; 
value of implements, ;^902,825 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^3,670,i35. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 17,783 bush. 

Buckwheat 1,254 " 

Butter 1,007,103 lbs. 

Cheese 67,171 " 

Hay 79,328 tons. 

Indian Corn 372,967 bush. 

Milk 3,831,706 galls. 

Oats I59»339 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products $58,751 

Potatoes, Irish 606,793 bush. 

" sweet 714 " 

Rye 12,997 " 

Tobacco 785 lbs. 

Wheat 240 bush. 

Wool........ 65,680 lbs. 



392 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 9,661 

Mules and asses 46 

Working oxen 3,523 

Milch cows 21,460 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^2,254,142 



Number. 

Other cattle io,6oi 

Sheep 17,21 1 

Swine I4>I2I 



MANUFACTURES. — Number of establishments, 2,205 ; capi- 
tal invested, ;^75,575,943 ; hands employed, 62,878 ; wages paid, 
$21,355,619; value of material, ;^5 8, 103,443; value of products, 
$104,163,621. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Boots and shoes $1,455,420 

Cotton goods 24,609,461 

Dyeing and finishing 6,874,254 

Flour and mill products. . . . 1,137,999 

Machinery 6,281,707 

Gold and silver, refined. . . . 1,421,100 

Jewelry 5.650,133 



Mixed textiles $2,718,822 

Rubber goods 2,217,000 

Screws 1,367,672 

Slaughtering and packing, .. 3,876,740 

Woollen goods 15,410,450 

Worsted goods 6,177,754 



Total steam and water power in use, 63,575 horse-power. 

JffiV/A^6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 
Coal, anthracite 6,176 tons $15,440 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— '^m\ro2.ds in 1883, 147 
miles of line; miles operated, 139; cost, ;^5,627,83i; total 
investment, ;^6,943,309. Steam craft, 70; tonnage, 21,487 ; value, 
;^i, 539,650. Sail craft, 241; tonnage, 16,588; value, ;^4 1 4,67 5. 
Barges and flats, 80; tonnage, 9,000; value, ;^i 32,600. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION.— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^243,658,i90; of personal property, ;^84,872, 369. State 
taxation (1883), rate 12 cents on ;^ioo, ;^492,796; county taxa- 
tion, none; city and town, ;^2, 298,477. State debt (1883), 
net and funded, ^1,159,846; county, city and town debts, ;^ii,- 
270,327. 

GOVERNMENT— CsLpitals, Newport and Providence. Gov- 
ernor elected for one year. Salary, ;^ 1,000. The other State 
officers — term one year except Adjutant-General, five years — 
are, Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^500 ; Secretary of State, $2,- 
500; Treasurer, ;^2,500; Auditor, ;^i,ooo; Insurance Commis- 



RULING BY STATES. 393 

sioner, ;^ 1,500; Railroad Commissioner, ;^500; Attorney- 
General, ;^2,500; Adjutant-General, ;^6oo; Commissioner of 
Public Schools, by Board of Education, ;^2,500. 

The Legislature is composed of 36 Senators and 72 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for one year, and each receiving one dollar 
a day and eight cents mileage. Legislature meets annually on 
last Tuesday in May at Newport, and holds an adjourned session 
at Providence. No limit to length of sessions. 

State elections held annually on first Wednesday in April, 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four as- 
sociates, elected by the Legislature till their places are filled, the 
effect being a choice for life, good behavior, or mental compe- 
tency. Salary of Chief Justice, ;^4,500, and of the Associate 
Justices, ;^4,ooo each. 

Representatives in Congress, 2 ; Presidential electors, 4. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Ind. Maj. ^ 
1872 President 13,665 5,329 8,336 R. 

1876 " 15,787 10,712 5,075 R. 

1877 Governor 12,458 11,787 671 R. 

1878 " 11,454 7,639 .... 3,8i5R- 

1879 " 9,717 5»5o8 .... 4,209 R. 

1880 President 18,195 10,779 7,4i6 R. 

1881 Governor 10,489 4,756 281 5,733 R- 

1882 " 10,056 5,311 .... 4,745 R. 

1883 " 13,078 10,201 706 2,877 R. 

1884 " 15,903 9,498 .... 6,405 R. 



394 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 




SOUTH CAROLINA. 

NAME. — See North Carolina. Popular name " Palmetto 
State." 

ADMISSION.— ^2X\^Qd. the Constitution, "May 23, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 30,170; acres, 19,308,800; persons to 
a square mile, 33.00. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 249,073 

1800 345.591 

1810 415,115 

1820 ... 502,741 

1830 581,185 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

387 
20.1 
21. 1 
15.6 



Census. Pop. 

1840 594,398 

1850 668,507 

i860 703,708 

1870 705,606 

1880 995,577 



Per cent, of 

increase. 

2.2 

12.4 

5-2 

0.2 

41.0 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 490,408 Native 987,891 

Female. .505,169 Foreign... 7,686 

Dwellings 191,914 

Families 202,062 

Voters — Males over 21 205,789 



White ... .391,105 Chinese 9 

Black 604,332 Indians 131 

Persons to a dwelling 5.19 

" family 4.93 

Natural miliiia, 18-44 170,922 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Abbeville 40,815 

Aiken 28,112 

Anderson 33,612 

Barnwell 39.857 

Beaufort 30,^76 

Charleston 102.800 

Chester 24,153 

Chesterfield 16,345 

Clarendon 19,190 

Colleton 36,386 

Darlington 34,485 

Edgefield 45,844 

Fairfield 27,765 

Georgetown 19,613 

Greenville 37,496 

Hampton 18,741 

Horry 15,574 



1870. 
31,129 

24,049 
35,724 
34,359 
88,863 
18,805 
10,584 
14,038 
25,410 
26,243 
42,486 
19,888 
16,161 
22,262 

10,721 



i860. 
32,385 



22,873 
30,743 
40,053 
70,100 
18,122 
11,834 
13,095 
41,916 
20,361 
39,887 
22,111 

21,305 
21,892 

7,962 



Counties. 1880. 

Kershaw 21,538 

Lancaster 16,903 

Laurens ^9,444 

Lexington 18,564 

Marion 34,107 

Marlborough 20,598 

Newberrj' 26,497 

Oconee 16,256 

Orangeburgh 4i,395 

Pickens 14.389 

Richland 28,573 

Spartanburgh 4 ,409 

Sumter 37,037 

Union 24,080 

Williamsburgh 24,110 

York 30,713 



1870. 


1S60 


",754 


13,086 


12,087 


11.797 


22,536 


23.858 


12,988 


»5,579 


22,160 


21,190 


11,814 


12.434 


20,775 


20,879 


10,536 




16,865 


24.896 


10,269 


19,639 


23,025 


18,307 


25,784 


26,919 


25,268 


23,859 


19,248 


19,635 


15,489 


15,489 


24,286 


21,502 



RULING BY STATES. 395 

EDUCATION. — Colleges, 9; instructors, 65 ; students, 618. 

Public schools, 3,077; value of school property, $\o'],2^6\ 
teachers, 3,204; teachers' salaries (1882), 349,696; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^405,55 1 ; expended for same (1882), 1^378,886 ; 
school age, 6-16 years; school population, 262,279; pupils 
enrolled, 145,974; average attendance (1882), 101,816; average 
length of school year in 1882, 80 days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 321,780, being 
48.2 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons 
over ten years who cannot write: native white, 59,415 ; foreign 
white, 362; colored, Chinese and Indians, 310,071 ; total, 369,- 
848, being 55.4 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 4; others, 78; total, 82. Circulation, 70,902. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 294,602; 
in professional and personal services, 64,246 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 13,556; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
19,698. 

AGRICULTWRE.—HumhQT of farms, 93,864; total acres in 
farms, 13,457,613; improved acres, 4,132,050; average size of 
farms, 143 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^68,677,482 ; 
value of implements, ;^3,202,7io; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^4 1,969,749. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 16,257 bush. 

Butter 3,196,851 lbs. 

Cheese 16,018 « 

Cotton 522,548 bales. 

Hay 2,706 tons. 

Indian Corn 1 1,767,099 bush. 

Milk 257,186 galls. 

Oats 2,715,505 bush. 

Orchard products ^78,934 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 144,942 bush. 

" sweet 2,189,622 " 

Rice 52,077,515 lbs. 

Rye 27,049 bush. 

Sug. & mol., 229hhds. 138,944 galls 

Tobacco 45,678 lbs. 

Wheat 962,358 bush. 

Wool 272,758 lbs. 



Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 60,660 

Mules and asses 67,005 

Working oxen 24,507 

Milch cows ; 139,881 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 112,279,412 

J/^i\^6K4C:r67?^5.— Number of establishments, 2,078; cap- 



Number. 

Other cattle 199,321 

Sheep 118,889 

Swine 628,198 



Lumber, sawed $2,031,507 

Tar and turpentine 1,893,206 



39g BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ital invested, ;^ 11,205,894; hands employed, 15,828; wages paid, 
;^2,836,289; value of material, ^,885, 538; value of products, 
^16,738,008. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Cotton goods $2,895,769 

Fertilizers 2,691,053 

Flour and mill products 3)779>47o 

Total steam and water power in use, 25,868 horse-power. 
J//A7iV6^.— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $13,040 

Silver 56 

Minor minerals . . 7,427 tons 27,709 

Total mineral products •. $40,805 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^\\ro2.ds in 1883, 1,517 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,442; cost, ;^40,783,037 ; total 
investment, ;^4 1,998,949. Steam craft, 41 ; tonnage, 5,242 ; value, 
;^242,700. Sail craft, 173; tonnage, 5,017; value, ;^I25,425. 
Flats, 375 ; value, ;^ 124, 150. ♦ 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^87, 132,401 ; of personal property, 1^48,249,939. State 
taxation (1883), rate 47.5 cents on ;^ioo, ;^35i,9io; county taxa- 
tion, ;^554,i64; city, town and village, ;^542,i09. State debt 
(1883), funded, ;^6,i03,024; unfunded, ^6,531,299; county, city 
and town debts, $6,yo6,y6y. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Columbia. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^3,500. The other State officers — terms 
two years — are: Lieutenant-Governor, salary, ;^ 1,000; Secretary 
of State, ;^ 2, 100; Treasurer, ;^2,ioo; Comptroller, ;^2,ioo; Attor- 
ney-General, ;^2, 100; Superintendent Public Education, ;^2, 1 00; 
Commissioner Agriculture, ;^2,ioo; Adjutant-General, ;^i,500; 
three Railroad Commissioners, two, three and four years ; State 
Librarian, ;^625. 

The Legislature is composed of 35 Senators and 124 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^5 a day and 10 cents mile- 
age. Legislature meets annually on fourth Tuesday in Novem- 
ber. No limit to length of session. 



RULING BY STATES. 



397 



State elections held biennially, and with Congressional and 
Presidential elections, on Tuesday after first Monday in No- 
vember. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, salary, ;^4,ooo, 
and two Associate Justices, salaries of each, ;^3,5oo, all elected 
by the Legislature for a term of six years. 

Representatives in Congress, 7 ; Presidential electors, 9. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. Dem. Maj. 

1872 Governor 69,838 36,553 33.285 R. 

1872 President 72,290 22,683 49.607 R. 

1874 Governor 80,403 68,8i8 ".585 R- 

1876 President 91,870 90,896 974 R- v 

1878 Congress 45,o8i 116,917 71,836 D. 

1880 Governor 4,277 Grbk. 117,432 113,1550. 

1880 President 57,966 111,236 53,2700. 

1882 Governor 17,719 Grbk. 67,158 49,439 D. 



TENNESSEE. 




NAME. — So called from the river Tennessee, which is the 
river " of the big bend," or " curved spoon," as some have it. 
Popular name, " The Big Bend State." 

ADMISSION. — Act of admission, and date of admission, 
June I, 1796. 

AREA. — Square miles, 41,750; acres, 26,720,000; persons to 
a square mile, 36.94. 

POPULATION ^xi^ rate of increase: 



Census, Pop. 

1790 35.691 

1800 105,602 

1810 261,727 

1820 422,771 

1830 681,904 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

195.8 

147.8 
61.5 

6l.2 



Per cent, of 

Census. Pop. increase. 

1840 829,210 21.6 

1850 ,....1,002,717 20.9 

i860 1,109,801 10.6 

1870 1 ,258,520 13.4 

1880 .1,542,359 22.5 



398 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



1880 by Classes. 



Male 769,277 Native 1,525,657 

Female. .773,082 Foreign... 16,702 

Dwellings 276,734 

Families 286,539 

Voters — Males over 21 330,305 



White. ...1,138,831 Chinese 25 

Black 403,151 Indians 352 

Persons to a dwelling 5.57 

" " family 5.38 

Natural militia, 18-44 276,895 



By Counties for three Censtises. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Anderson 10,820 8,704 7,068 

Bedford 26,025 5?4»333 21,584 

Benton 9,780 8,234 8,463 

Bledsoe 5,617 4.870 4,459 

Blount 15,985 14,237 13,270 

Bradley 12,124 11,652 11,701 

Canipbell 10,005 7,445 6,712 

Cannon ",859 10,502 9,509 

Carroll 22,103 19,447 17,437 

Carter , 10,019 7,909 7,124 

Cheatham 7,956 6,678 7,258 

Claibffrne 13, 373 9,32i 9,643 

Clay 6,987 

Cocke 14,808 12,458 10,408 

Coffee 12,894 10,237 9,689 

Crockett 14,109 

Cumberland 4,538 3,461 3,460 

Davidson 79,026 62,897 47,055 

Decatur 8,498 7,772 6,276 

DeKalb 14,813 11,425 10,573 

Dickson 12,460 9,340 9,982 

Dyer 15,118 13,706 10,536 

Fayette 31,871 26,145 24,327 

Fentress 5,941 4, 717 5,o54 

Franklin 17,178 14,970 13,848 

Gibson 32,685 25,666 21,777 

Giles 36,014 32,413 26,166 

Grainger 12,384 12,421 10,962 

Greene 24,005 21,668 19,004 

Grundy 4,592 3,250 3,093 

Hamblen 10,187 

Hamilton 23,642 17,241 13,258 

Hancock 9,098 7,148 7,020 

Hardeman 22,921 18,074 17,769 

Hardin 14, 793 11,768 11,214 

Hawkins 20,610 15,837 16,162 

Haywood 26,053 25,094 19,232 

Henderson 17,430 14,217 14,491 

Henry 22,142 20,380 19,133 

Hickman 12,095 9,856 9,312 

Houston 4,295 

Humphreys ii,379 9,326 9,096 

Jackson 12,008 12,583 11,725 

James 5,187 

Jefferson 15,846 19,476 16,043 

Johnson 7,766 5,852 5,018 

Knox 39,124 28,990 22,813 



Counties. 1880. 

Lake 3,968 

Lauderdale 14,918 

Lawrence 10,383 

Lewis 2,181 

Lincoln 26,960 

Loudon 9,148 

McMinn 15,064 

McNairy 17.271 

Macon 9,321 

Madison 30,874 

Marion 10,910 

Marshall 19,259 

Maury 39,904 

Meigs 7,117 

Monroe 14,283 

Montgomery 28,481 

Moore 6,233 

Morgan 5,156 

Obion 22,912 

Overton 12,153 

Perry 7,174 

Pclk 7,269 

Putnam 11,501 

Rhea 7,073 

Roane 15,237 

Robertson 18,861 

Rutherford 36,741 

Scott 6,021 

Sequatchie 2,565 

Sevier 15,541 

Shelby 78,430 

Smith 17,799 

Stewart 12,690 

Sullivan 18,3^1 

Sumner 23,625 

Tipton 21,033 

Trousdale 6,646 

Unicoi ^..... 3,645 

Union 10,260 

Van Buren 2,933 

Warren 14,079 

Washington 16,181 

Wayne 11,301 

Weakeley 24,538 

White 11,176 

Williamson 28,313 

Wilson 28,747 



1870. 


i860. 


2,428 




10,838 


7,559 


7,601 


9,320 


1,986 


2,241 


28,050 


22,828 


13,969 


13,555 


12,726 


14,732 


6,633 


7,290 


23,480 


21,535 


6,841 


6,190 


16,207 


14,592 


36,289 


32,498 


4,511 


4,667 


12,589 


12,607 


24,747 


20,895 


2,969 


3,353 


15,584 


12,817 


11,297 


12,637 


6,925 


6,542 


7.369 


8,726 


8.698 


8,558 


. 5,538 


4,991 


15,622 


13,583 


16,166 


15,265 


33,289 


27,918 


4,054 


3,519 


2,335 


2,120 


11,028 


9,122 


76,378 


48,092 


15,994 


16,357 


12,019 


9.896 


13,136 


13,552 


23,711 


22,030 


14,884 


10,705 


7,605 


^^7 


2,725 


2,581 


12,714 


11,147 


16,317 


14.829 


10,209 


9,115 


20,755 


18,216 


9,375 


9.381 


25,328 


23.827 


25,881 


26,072 



EDUCATION.— CoWcgQs, 19; instructors, 168; students, 2,- 
941. 

Public schools, 5,688; value of school property, ;^i,025,858; 
teachers, 5,937; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^7i 8,921 ; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^97 3, 1 98; expended for same (1882), ;^827,I54; 
school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 549,179; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 264,356; average attendance (1881), 
180,509; average length of school year in 1882, 73 days. 



RULING BY STATES. 3^9 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 294,385, being 27.7 
per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write : native white, 214,994; foreign white, 
1,233; colored, Chinese and Indians, 194,495; total, 410,722, 
being 38.7 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 12; others, 180; total, 192. Circulation, 298,619. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture,v 294,153; 
in professional and personal services, 94,107 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 23,628 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
36,082. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 165,650; total acres in 
farms, 20,666,915; improved acres, 8,496,556; average size of 
farms, 125 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^2o6,749,837 ; 
value of implements, ;^9,054,863 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^62,076,3ii. 

• Principal Products. 

Quantity. 

Barley 30jOi9 bush. 

Buckwheat 33j434 " 

Butter 17,886,369 lbs. 

Cheese 98,740 " 

Cotton 330,621 bales. 

Hay 1^6,698 tons. 

Indian Corn 62,764,429 bush. 

Milk 1,006,795 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 4,722,190 bush. 

Orchard products ^919,844 

Potatoes, Irish 1,354,481 bush. 

" sweet 2,369,901 " 

Rye 156,419 " 

Tobacco 29,365,052 lbs. 

Wheat 7>33Ij353 bush. 

Wool 1,918,295 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 



Number. 



Other cattle 452,462 

Sheep 672,789 

Swine . . . . w 2,160,495 



Horses 266, 1 19 

M ules and asses 1 73,498 

Working oxen 27,312 

Milch cows 303,900 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 ^43,651,470 

MANUFACTURES.— ^umhQY of establishments, 4,326; capi- 
tal invested, ;^20,092,845 ; hands employed, 22,445 5 wages paid, 
;^5, 254,775; value of material, ;^23, 834,262 ; value of products, 
;$37,074,886. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Carriages and wagons ^1,253,721 Liquors, distilled $540,729 

Cotton goods 934,014 I Lumber, planed and sawed . . 4,015,310 

Flour and mill products 10,784,804 I Oil and oil cake 1,235,000 

Machinery 1,191,531 j Printing and publishing 653,645 

Furniture 954,100 [ Slaughtering and packing.. . . 1,376,476 

Iron and steel 2,274,203 Tin and copperware 710,813 

Leather, tanned and curried. . 2,051,087 I Woollen goods 620,724 



400 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Total steam and water power in use, 51,952 horse-power. 
MINING.— Q\x2.nt\X.y : 

Value. 

Gold ^1,998 

Coal, biiuminous 494,491 tons 628,954 

Iron ore 89,933 " 129,951 

Lead ore 60 " 2,500 

Zinc ore 3.699 " 22,145 

Copper ingots 1 53,880 lbs. 

Total mineral products $785,548 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Raiho^ids in 1883, 2,194 
miles of line; miles operated, 1,928; cost, ;^i 20,195,1 50 ; total 
investment, ;^I26,323,I24. Steam craft, 61; tonnage, 11,348; 
value, ;^5 8,900. Barges, 29; value, ;^5,8oo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^i95,635,ioo ; of personal property, ;^i6,i33,338. State 
taxation (1882), rate 20 cents on ;^ioo, ^54,903 ; county, ;^ 1,488,- 
126; city town and village, ;^644,568. State debt funded; ;^20,- 
»2o6,300; unfunded, ^6,336,550; county, city and town debt, $g,- 
947,469. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Nashville. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^4,ooo. The other State officers are : Secre- 
tary of State (four years), salary, ;^ 1,800; Treasurer (two years), 
;^2,700; Comptroller (two years), ;^2,700 ; Attorney-General (two 
years), $3,000; Superintendent Public Instruction (two years), 
;^i,8oo; Adjutant-General (two years), ;^ 1,200; Commissioner of 
Agriculture (two years), ;^3,000 ; Land Register (four years), 
fees; three Railroad Commissioners (two years), each $2,000; 
State Librarian (two years), $1,000. 

The Legislature is composed of 33 Senators and 99 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of each, $4 a day 
and 16 cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on first 
Monday in January. Session limited to 75 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after the first Monday in November. 

Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice, and four associ- 
ates, elected by the people for eight years. Salary of each, $4,- 
000. 

Representatives in Congress, 10; Presidential electors, 12. 



RULING BY STATES. 401 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Ind. Maj. 

1872 President 94,39^ ^3>655 .... 10,7360. 

1874 Governor 103,061 55>843 .... 47,2180. 

1876 President 133,166 89,566 43,600 D. 

1878 Governor 89,018 42,328 .... 46,6900, 

1880 President 130,381 98,760 31,621 D. 

1882 Governor 109,873 80,149 7f246 29,6240. 



TEXAS. 




NAME. — So called by the Spaniards, in 1690, who that year 
drove the French from their settlement at Matagorda. Popular 
name, " The Lone Star State." 

ADMISSION. — Texas was admitted by annexation. Act of 
admission, March i, 1845 ; actual admission, Dec. 29, 1845. 

AREA. — Square miles, 262,290; acres, 167,865,600; persons 
to a square mile, 6.07. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1850 212,592 

i860 604,215 

1870 818,579 

18S0 1,591749 

1880 by Classes. 



Per cent, of 

increase, 

184.2 

35-4 
94,4 



Male 837,840 Native 1,477,133 

Female, .753,909 Foreign.,.. 114,616 

Dwellings 287,562 

Families 297,259 

Voters — Males over 21 380,376 

26 



White. , . .1,197,237 Chinese 136 

Black .... 393,384 Indians, , . .992 

Persons to a dwelling 5-54 

" family 5.35 

Natural militia, 18-44, 332,120 



402 



BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC, 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Anderson 17.395 

Andrews 

Angelina 5,239 

Aransas 996 

Arclier 596 

Armstrong 31 

Atascosa 4.217 

Austin 14.429 

Bailey 

Bandera 2,158 

Bastrop 17.215 

Baylor 715 

Bee 2,298 

Bell 20,518 

Bexar _ 30,470 

Bexar District 

Blanco 3:583 

Borden 35 

Bosque ",217 

Bowie 10,965 

Brazoria 9.774 

Brazos 13,576 

Briscoe 12 

Brown 8,414 

Burleson 9.243 

Burnet 6,855 

CaldwtU 11.757 

Calhoun 1.739 

Callahan 3.453 

Cameron 14,959 

Camp 5,931 

Carson 

Cass 16,724 

Castro 

Chambers 2,187 

Cherokee 16,723 

Childress 25 

Clay 5,045 

Cockran 

Coleman 3.603 

Collin 25,983 

Collingsworth 6 

Colorado 16,673 

Comal 5,546 

Comanche 8,608 

Concho 800 

Cooke 20,391 

Coryell 10,924 

Cottle 24 

Crockett 127 

Crosby 82 

Dallam 

Dallas 33.488 

Dawscn 24 

Deaf Smith 38 

Delta 5.597 

Denton 18,143 

De Witt 10,082 

Dickens 28 

Dimmitt 665 

Donley i6d 

Duval 5,732 

Eastland 4,855 

Edwards 266 

Ellis 21,294 

EI Paso , 3,845 

Encinal 1,902 

Erath 11.796 

Falls 16,240 

Fannin 25,501 

Fayette 27,996 

Fisher 136 

Floyd 3 

Fort Bend 9.380 



1870. 

9,229 


i86o. 
10,398 


3.985 


4,291 


2,915 
15,087 


i','578 
10,139 


649 

12,290 


399 
7,ocO 


1,082 


910 


9.771 

16,043 

1,077 

1,187 


4.799 
14.454 

1,281 


4.981 
4.684 
7.527 
9-205 


2,005 
5,052 


8,07^ 
3,688 
6,572 
3,443 


244 

5.683 
2,487 
4.481 
2,642 


ro,999 


6,028 


8'875 


8,4" 


1,503 
11,079 


1,508 
12,098 




109 


347 
14,013 


9,264 


8,326 
5,283 
1,001 


7.885 

4,030 

709 


5,315 
4,124 


V& 


13.314 


8,665 
281 


7,251 
6,443 


5,031 
5,108 


IC9 




1,083 
88 


99 


7,514 

3,671 

427 

1,801 

9.851 

13,207 

16,863 


5.246 
4,051 
43 
2,425 
3,614 
9,217 
11,604 



7,114 



■3.218 

7,282 



733 



Counties, 1880. 1870. 

Franklin 5,280 

Freestone 14.921 8,139 

Frio 2,130 3-9 

Gaines 8 

Galveston 24,121 15,290 

Garza 36 

Gillespie 5,228 3,566 

Goliad 5,832 3,628 

Gonzales 14,840 8,951 

Gray 56 

Grayson 38,108 14,387 

Gregg 8,530 

Grimes i8,6j3 

Guadalupe 12,202 

Hale 

Hall 36 

Hamilton 6,365 

Hansford 18 

Hardeman 50 

Hardin 1,870 

Harris 27,985 

Harrison 25,177 

Hartley 100 

Haskell 48 

Hayts 7,555 4,088 

Hemphill 149 

Henderson 9,7J5 6,786 

Hidalgo 4,^47 2,387 

Hill 16,554 7.453 

Hockley 

Hood 6,125 2,585 

Hopkins 15,461 12,651 

Houston 16,702 8,147 

Howard 50 

Hunt 17,230 10,291 

Hutchinson 50 

Jack 6,626 

Jackson 

Jasper 

Jefferson 

Johnson 

Jones ^»„ 

iCarnes 

Kaufman 15,448 6,895 

Kendall 2,763 1,536 

Kent 92 

Kerr 2,168 1,042 

Kimble 1,343 72 

King 40 

Kinney 4,487 1,204 

Knox 77 

Lamar 27,193 15,790 

Lamb 

Lampasas 5,421 

La Salle 789 

Lavaca 13.641 

Lee 8,937 

Leon 12.817 

Liberty 4,999 

Limestone 16,246 

Lipscomb 69 

Live Oak 1.994 

Llano 4,962 

Lubbock 25 

Lynn 9 

McCulloch 1.533 

McLennan 26,934 

McMullen 701 

Madison 5,395 

Marion 10,983 

Martin 12 

Mason 2,655 678 

Matagorda 3,94o 3,377 

Maverick 2,967 1,951 



1,344 

69 

9,168 

6,523 
4,414 
8,591 

"852 
1,379 



173 
i3,5JO 

230 
4,061 
8,562 



i860. 



6,881 
42 

8,229 

2,736 
3,384 
8,059 

8,184 



10,307 
5,444 



489 



1,460 


1,353 


7,375 


9,070 


3,241 


15,001 



2,126 

4,595 
1,192 
3,653 



7.745 
8.058 



6,630 



6,626 


694 


I,OCO 


2,723 


2,278 


2,612 


5,779 


4,218 


4,037 


3,489 


1,906 


1,995 


7,911 

546 

3,270 


4,923 


4,305 


i'70S 


2,171 



3,936 



634 



6i 
10,136 
1,028 



5.945 

6,78i 
3,189 
4.537 

593 
1,101 



6,2c6 

2,238 
3.977 

630 

3.454 
720 



RULING BY STATES. 



403 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 

Medina 4,492 

Menard.., 1,239 

Milam 18,6:^9 

Mitchell 117 

Montague 11,257 

Montgomery io,i54 

Moore 

Morris 5,032 

Motley 24 

Nacogdoches 11,590 

Navarro 21,702 

Newton 4,359 

Nolan 640 

Nueces 7,673 

Ochiltree 

Oldham 287 

Orange 2,938 

Palo Piuto 5,885 

Panola 12,219 

Parker 15,870 

Parmer 

Pecos 1,807 

Polk 7,189 

Potter 28 

Presidio 2,873 

Rains 3,035 

Randall 3 

Red River 17,194 

Refugio 1,585 

Roberts 32 

Robert-on 22,383 

Rockwall 2,984 

Runnels 980 

Rusk 18,986 

Sabine 4, 161 

San Augustine 5,084 

San Jacinto 6,186 

San Patricio 1,010 

San Saba 5,324 



1870. 

2,078 

667 

8,984 



6,483 



9,614 
8,879 
2,187 

3,975 



1,255 



10,119 
4,186 



8,707 
1,636 



10,653 
2,324 



9,990 



16.916 

3,256 
4,196 

602 
1,425 



i86d. 



849 
5,479 



8,292 
5,996 
3,119 



2,906 



1,916 

I,.' -4 
8,475 
4,2x3 



6,535 
1,600 



4,997 



15,803 
2,750 
4,094 



620 
913 



Counties. 1880. 

Scurry 102 

Shackelford 2,037 

Slielby 9,523 

Sherman 

Smith 21,863 

Somervell 2,649 

Starr 8,34 

Stephens 4,725 

Stoni-wall 104 

Swisher 4 

Tarrant 24,671 

Jaylor 1,736 

lerry 

Throckmorton . 

Titus , 

Tom Green 

Travis 

Trinity 

Tyler 

Upshur 

Uvalde 2,541 

Van Zandt 12,619 

Victoria 6,289 

Walker 12,024 

Waller 9,024 

Washington 27,565 

Wtbb 5,273 

Wharton 4,549 

Wheeler 512 

Wichita 433 

Wilbarger 126 

Williamson i5,iS5 

Wilson 7,118 

Wise 16,601 

Wood 11,212 

Yoakum 

Young 4,726 

Zapaia 3,6^6 

Zavalla 410 



711 

5.959 
3,615 

27,028 
4,915 
5,825 

10,266 



1870. 

455 
5,732 



4,154 
330 



11,339 



13,153 
4,141 
5,010 

12,039 

851 

6,494 

4,860 

9,776 



23,104 
2,615 

3,^26 



6,368 
2,556 
1,450 
6,894 

135 

1,488 

133 



i860. 



44 

5,362 



'6,532 13,392 



2,406 
230 



5,788 6,020 



124 
9,648 

8,080 
4,392 
4,525 
10,645 
506 
3.777 
4,171 
8,191 



15,21.5 
1,397 
3,380 



4,529 

3,160 
4,968 



1,248 
26 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, lo; instructors, 105; students, 

2,396. 

Public schools, 6,692; value of school property, ;^i, 130,762; 
teachers, 6,764; teachers' salaries (1882), ;$7I4,207; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^92 1,595 ; expended for same (1882), ^803,850; 
school age, 8-14 years; school population (1882), 295,344; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 142,960; average attendance (1882), 
60,259; average length of school year in 1882, 92 days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 256,223, being 
24. 1 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 97,498 ; foreign white, 
26,414; colored, Chinese and Indians, 192,520; total, 316,432, 
being 29.7 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 31; others, 248; total, 279. Circulation, 355,- 
938. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 359,317; 



404 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in professional and personal services, 97,561 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 34,909 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
30,346. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 174,184; total acres in 
farms, 36,292,219; improved acres, 12,650,314; average size of 
farms, 208 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 170,468,886; 
value of implements, ;^9,05 1,491; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ^65,204,329. 

Prijicipal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 72,786 bush. 

Buckwheat 535 " 

Butler 13,899,320 lbs. 

Cheese 58,466 " 

Cotton 805,284 bales. 

Hay 59»699 tons. 

Indian Corn 29,065,172 bush. 

Milk 1,296,806 galls. 

Oals 4,893*359 l^ush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products $876,844 

Potatoes, Irish 228,832 bush. 

" sweet 1,460,079 " 

Rice 62,r52 lbs. 

Rye 25 399 bush. 

Sug. & mol., 4,951 hhd. 810,605 galls. 

Tobacco 221,283 lbs. 

Wheat 2,567,737 bush. 

Wool 6,928,019 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Other cattle 3.387,927 

Sheep 2,411,633 

Swine 1,950,371 



Number. 

Horses 805,606 

Mules and asses 132,447 

Working oxen 90,502 

Milch cows 606,176 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 $60,307,987 

MANUFACTURES.— ^umh&r of establishments, 2,996; 
capital invested, ;^9,245,56i ; hands employed, 12,159; wages 
paid, ;^3, 343,087; value of materials, ;^I2,956,269; value of pro- 
ducts, ;^20,7 19,928. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Flour and mill products $7,617,177 

Foundry and machine-shop.. . 532,778 
Lumber, planed and sawed... 4,130,049 
Printing and publishing 605,000 



Saddlery $587,871 

Tm and copperware 491,420 

Sash and doors 416,500 

Slaughtering and packing 486,400 



Total steam and water power in use, 30,543 horse-power. 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— RciiWoRds in 1883, 5,715 
miles of line; miles operated, 4,363; cost, ;^I72, 323,744; total 
investment, $223,701,146. Steam craft, 35; tonnage, 4,352; 
value, ;^I96,900. Sail craft, 230; tonnage, 7,713; value, ;^I92,- 
800. Barges and flats, 23 ; value, $25,500. 
• FINANCIAL CONDITION— Ass^ss^d value of real and 



RULING BY STATES. 405 

personal property (1882), ;^ 5 20,000,000; In 1880,^320,364,515. 
State taxation (1882), rate 30 cents on ^100, ^1,396,170; county 
taxation, ;^ 1, 68 5, 907; city, town and village taxation, ;^694,269. 
State debt (1882), funded, ;^4,447,700; county, city and town 
debts, ^6,037,985. 

GOVERNMENT.— C2.^\t2.\, Austin. Governor elected for 
two years. Salary, ;^4,ooo. The other State officers are : Lieu- 
tenant-Governor (two years), salary, $^ a day; Secretary of 
State, ^2,000; Treasurer, ;^2,500; Comptroller, ^2,500; Attor- 
ney-General, ;^2,ooo; Adjutant-General, ;^2,ooo; Commissioner 
Lands, ;^2, 500; Commissioner Insurance, ^2,000; Railroad Com- 
missioner, ;^3,ooo. 

The Legislature is composed of 31 Senators and 106 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, $^ a day and mileage. Legis- 
lature meets biennially on second Tuesday in January. Session 
limited to 60 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two Asso- 
ciate Justices, elected by the people for six years. Salary of 
each, ;^3,500. 

Representatives in Congress, ii; Presidential electors, 13. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 





Dem. 


Rep. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


1872 President 


, . . 68,622 


46,482 




22,140 D. 


1873 Governor. . . . 


, . . 99,984 


52,353 





47,631 D. 


1875 " . . . . 


, .. 150,581 


50,000 




100,581 D. 


1876 President 


.. 104,755 


44,800 




59,955 I>. 


1878 Governor. . . 


•• 158,933 


23,402 


55,002 


134,531 D. 


1880 President 


.. 146,863 


53,298 


26,244 


93,565 D- 


1882 Governor. . . 


.. 150,890 


102^501 




48,389 D. 



406 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 




UTAH TERRITORY. 

NAME. — Probably the Indian tribal name, Ute. 
ORGANIZATION.— EYQctQd into a Territory, Sept. 9, 1850. 
AREA. — Square miles, 82,190; acres, $3,601,600; persons to 
a square mile, 1.75. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

1850 11,380 

r86o 40,273 



Per cent, of 
increase. 



253-8 



Census. Pop. 

1870 86,786 

1880 ,..143.963 



1880 by Gasses. 



Per cent. oP 
increase. 

"5-4 
65.8 



Male 74»509 Native 99,969 

Female.. .69,454 Foreign .'.. 43,994 

Dwellings 26,7 10 

Families 28,373 

Voters — Males over 21 32,773 



White 142,423 Chinese 501 

Black 232 Indians 807 

Persons to a dwelling 5.39 

" " family 5.07 

Natural militia, 18-44 26,480 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. i.88o. 

Beaver ~..... 3,918 

Box Elder 6,761 

Cache 12,562 

Cedar 

Davis 5t279 

Emery 556 

Green River 

Iron 4.013 

Jual^ •••- 3>474 

Kane 3,085 

Millard •. 3 727 

Morgan i ,783 

Pi Ute 1,651 

Rich 1,263 



1870. 
2,007 
4.855 
8,229 



i860. 

78s 
1,608 
2,605 



4,459 


741 

2,904 




141 


2,277 

2,034 


1,010 
672 


1,513 




2,753 


715 


1,972 

82 




1,955 






Counties. 1880. 

Rio Virgin 

Salt Lake 3^,977 

San Juan 204 

Sanpete ",557 

Sevier 4,457 

Shambip 

Summit 4,921 

Tooele 4,497 

Uintah... 799 

Utah 17,973 

Wassatch 2,927 

Washington 4,235 

Weber i2,344 



1870. 

450 

8,337 


i860. 
",295 


6,786 
»9 

2,512 
2,177 


3.815 

■■■162 

,98 

1,008 


2,203 
1,244 


8.248 



3.^64 

7.858 



691 

3,675 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, i; instructors, 4 ; students, 193. 

Public schools, 383 ; value of school property, ;^372,273 ; 
teachers, 434;, teachers' salaries (1882), ;^I49,637; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^ 176,048; expended for same (1882), ;$ 185, 5 88 ; 
school age, 6-18 years; school population (1882), 43,393; 



RULING BY STATES. 407 

pupils enrolled (1882), 27,216; average attendance (1882), 17,- 
594; average length of school year in 1882, 139 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 4,85 1, being 5 per cent, 
of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 3,183; foreign white, 4,954; 
colored, Chinese and Indians, 689 ; total, 8,826, being 9.1 per cent, 
of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 5 ; others, 19; total, 24. Circulation, 36,675. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 14,550; 
in professional and personal services, 11,144; in trade and trans- 
portation, 4,149; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining,. 
10,212. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 9,452; total acres in 
farms, 655,524; improved acres, 416,105 ; average size of farms,, 
69 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^i4,oi5,i78 ; value of 
implements, ;^946,753 ; total value of all farm. products, sold, coa- 
sumed or on hand,^ ^3,337,410. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 217,140 bush. 

Butter 1,052,903 lbs. 

Cheese 126,727 '* 

Hay 92,735 tons. 

Indian Corn 163,342 bush. 

Milk 155,263 galls. 



Quantity. 

Gats 418,082 busho. 

Grchard products- ^148,493 

Potatoes, Irish 573,595 bush. 

Rye 9,605 " 

Wheat. . . 1,169,199 " 

Wool 973>246 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 

Number. Number. 

Gther cattle. 58,680 

Sheep 233,121 

Swine 17,198 



Horses 38,131 

Mules and asses 2,898 

Working oxen 3*968 

Miich cows 32,768 

Total value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^$3,306,638 

MANUFACTURES.— ^umh&r of establishments, 640; capi- 
tal invested, ;^2,656,657; hands einployed, 2,495; wages paid, 
;^85 8,863 ; value of material, ;^2,56i,737; value of products, 
^4,324,992. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Flour and mill products .... ^1,364,619 I Woollen goods $279,424 

Lumber, sawed 375,164 I 

Total steam and water power in use, 4,689 horse-power. 



408 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

JfflV/iVa— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold $291 ,587 

Silver 4,743,087 

Total mineral products $5,034,674 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— "^^Wrodids in 1883, 1,123 
miles of line; miles operated, 864; cost, ;^36,894,249 ; total in- 
vestment, $36,914,860. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal estate (1882), ;^25, 579,234. Territorial taxation (1882), 
rate 60 cents on $100, $174,792 ; county taxation, $155,706; 
city and town, $130,882. No Territorial debt; county, city and 
village debt, $107,131. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital, Salt Lake City. Governor ap- 
pointed by President and Senate for four years. Salary, $2,600. 
The other officers are a Secretary, term four years, salary, 
$1,800; a Treasurer, term two years, $600; Auditor, term two 
years, $1,500; Superintendent Public Instruction, term two 
years, $1,500; Secretary Board of Agriculture, and Territorial 
Librarian. 

The Legislatu-re is composed of 12 Senators and 24 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $4 a 
day and 20 cents mileage. Legislature meets on second Monday 
in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

Territorial elections held on first Monday in August an- 
nually. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two as- 
sociates, appointed by the President and Senate for four years. 
Salary of each, $3,000. 

Representative in Congress, I Delegate. 

POLITICS— Vote for Delegate : 

Mormon. Anti-Mormon. Maj. 

1880 18,568 1,357 17,211 M. 

1882 23,239 4,908 18,331 M. 

Out of a total registration of voters, in 1882, of 33,266, 14,491 
were female voters. Owing to the operation of the " Edmunds' 
Law/' the Delegate for 1880 held over. 



RULING BY STATES. 



409 




VERMONT. 

NAME. — A descriptive name. French verd, green, and mont, 
mountain, " green mountain." Popularly called " The Green 
Mountain State." 

ADMISSION.— KqX of admission, Feb. i8, 1791 ; actual 
admission, March 4, 179 1. 

AREA. — Square miles, 9,135 ; acres, 5,846,400; persons to a 
square mile, 36.38. 

POPULATION and rate of increase : 



Census. Pop. 

1790 85,425 

1800 154,465 

1810 217,895 

1820 235,966 

1830 280,652 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

80.8 

41.0 

8.2 



Census. Pop. 

1840 291,948 

1850 314,120 

i860 315,098 

1870 330.551 

1880 332,286 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
4.0 
7-5 
03 
4.9 

0-5 



1880 by Classes. 



Males,... 166,887 Native.... 291,327 

Females.. 165,399 Foreign.... 40,959 

Dwellings 66,769 

Families 73.092 

Voters — Males over 21 95,621 

By Counties for three Censuses 
i860, 



White... 331^218 Chinese 

Black... 1,057 Indians.... II 

Persons to a dwelling 4.98 

" " family 4.55 

Natural militia, 18-44 64,162 



Counties. 1880. 1870. 

Addison 24,173 23,484 24,010 

Bennington 21,050 21,325 19,436 

Caledonia 23,607 22.235 21,698 

Chittenden 32,792 36,480 28,171 

Essex 7,931 6,811 5,786 

Iranklin 30,225 30,291 27,231 

Grand Isle 4,124 4,082 4,276 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Lamoille 12,684 12,448 12,311 

Orange 23,525 23.C90 25,455 

Orleans 22,085 21,035 18,981 

Rutland 41,829 40,651 35,946 

Washington 25,404 26,520 27,622 

Windham 26,763 26,036 26,982 

Windsor 35,196 36,063 37,^93 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 2 ; instructors, 22 ; students, 97. 

Public schools, 2,597; value of school property, $i,42y,^4y ; 
teachers, 2,597; teachers' salaries (1882), ^381,608; receipts for 
school purposes, $462,1 ^g; expended for same (1882), ;$476,- 



410 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

478; school age, 5-20 years; school population (1880), 99,463; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 74,000; average attendance (1882), 47,- 
772; average length of school year (1882), 126.5 days. 

Persons over ten years of age vi^ho cannot read, 12,993, being 
4.9 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 5,354; foreign white, 
10,327; colored, Chinese and Indians, 156; total, 15,837, being 
6.0 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 5; others, yj \ total, 82. Circulation, 130,- 
842. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged; in agriculture, 55,251; 
in professional and personal services, 28,174; in trade and trans- 
portation, 8,945 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 26,- 
214. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 35,522; total acres in 
farms, 4,882,588; improved acres,, 3,286461; average size of 
farms, 137 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^ 109,346,010; 
value of implements, ^4,879,285 ; total value of all farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 2 2, 08 2, 65.6. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 267,625 bush. 

Buckwheat 356,618 " 

Butter 35,240,826 lbs. 

Cheese 1,545,789 " 

Hay 1,051,183 tons. 

Hops 1 09,350 lbs. 

Indian Corn 2,014,271 bush. 

Milk 6,526,550 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 3,742,282 bush. 

Orchard products , . ^640,942 

Potatoes, Irish 4,438,172 bush. 

Rye 71,733 " 

Tobacco 131,432 lbs. 

Wheat 337*257 bush. 

Wool 2,551,113 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 75>2 1 5 

Mules and asses 283 

Working oxen 18,868 

Milch cows 217,033 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^16,586,195 



Number. 

Other cattle 167,204 

Sheep 439,870 

Swine 76,384 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umh^r of establishments, 2,874; 
capital invested, ^23,265,224; hands employed, 17,450; wages 
paid, ;^5, 164,479; value of material, ;^i8,330,677 ; value of pro- 
ducts, ^31,354,366. 



RULING BY STATES. 411 



The principal manufactures are : 



Marble-work $1,303,700 

Mixed textiles 1,277,903 

Musical instruments 680,800 

Paper 1,237,484 

Scales 2,080,474 

Woollen goods 3,217,807 



Agricultural implements $718,455 

Cotton goods 915,864 

Flour and mill products 3,038,688 

Machinery 783,828 

Hosiery 595,270 

Leather, tanned and curried... 1,614,840 

Lumber, planed and sawed.. .. 5,968,338 

Total steam and water power in use, 63,314 horse-power. 
MINING.— QudinWty : 

Value. 

Iron ore 560 tons $2,750 

Copper ingots 2,647,894 lbs. 469,495 

Minor minerals 48,788 

Total value of mineral products $521,033 

'COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Railrosids in 1883, 836 
miles of line; miles operated, 884; cost, ;^38,639,234 ; total in- 
vestment, $40,Syy,66i. Steam craft, 12; tonnage, 2,259; value, 
;^22i,300. Sail craft, 17; tonnage, 938 ; value, ^23,425. Canal 
boats, 12; tonnage, 1,000; value, ^20,000. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ;^ 106,372,797; of personal property, ;^46,2i8,5o8. State 
taxation (1883), rate 10 cents on ;^ioo, ;^278,397 ; county taxa- 
tion, ;^ 1 5,344; city, town and village, ;^ 1,326,481. State debt 
(1883), none; county, city and town debt, ;^4,348,i68. 

GOVERNMENT— Csipital Montpelier. Governor elected 
for two years. Salary, ;^ 1,000. The other State officers — all 
elected for two years — -are : Lieutenant-Governor, salary, $6 a 
day; Secretary of State, ^1,700; Treasurer, ;^ 1,700; Auditor, 
;^2,ooo; Finance Inspector, ;^500; Railroad Commissioner, 
$500; Adjutant-General, ^750; two Insurance Commissioners, 
fees ; Superintendent Public Instruction, ;^ 1,400; Secretary Board 
of Agriculture ; State Librarian, 1^350. 

The Legislature is composed of 30 Senators and 240 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, $^ 
a day. Legislature meets biennially on first Wednesday in 
October. No limit to length of session. 

State elections held on first Tuesday in September. Presi- 
dential election held on Tuesday after first Monday in No- 
vember. 



412 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Asso- 
ciate Justices, elected by the Legislature for a term of two years. 
Salary of each, ;$2.5oo. 

Representatives in Congress, 2 ; Presidential electors, 4. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 



Rep. Dem. 

1872 President 41,487 10,947 

1874 Governor 33,582 13,258 

1876 President 44,091 20,254 

1878 Governor 37-312 17,247 

1880 President 45,567 18,316 

1880 Governor 47,848 21,245 

1S82 " 35,839 14,466 



Grbk. 



2,63s 
1,215 
1,578 
1,535 



Mnj. 
30,540 R. 
20,324 R. 

23.837 R. 

20,065 R. 
27,251 R. 
26,603 R. 
21,1-11 R. 



VIRGINIA. 




NAME. — In honor of Queen Elizabeth, " the Virgin Queen," 
in whose reign Sir Walter Raleigh made the first attempt to 
colonize the region. Popular names, " Old Dominion," ** Mother 
of Presidents," and '' Mother of States." 

ADMISSION.— ^^Hx'a^d. the Constitution, June 25, 1788. 

AREA. — Square miles, 40,125 ; acres, 25,680,000; persons to 
a square mile, 2>7'7^' 

POPULATION ^.vidi rate of increase: 



Census. Pop, 

1790 747,610 

1800 880,200 

1810 974,600 

1820 1,065,116 

1830 1,211,405 

1840 1,239,797 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

17.7 
10.7 

9.2 
137 

2.3 



Per cent, of 
Census. Pop. increase. 

1850 1,421,661 14.6 

i860 1,596,318 12.2 

1870 1,225,163 4.4 1 ^^'^^ 

1880 1,512,565 23.4 



RULING BY STATES. 



413 



by Classes. 



Male 745,589 Native 1,497,869 

Female. .766,976 Foreign... 14,696 

Dwellings.. 265,611 

Families 282,355 

Voters — Males over 21 334>5o5 



White 880,858 Chinese 6 

Black ... .631,616 Indians,... 85 

Persons to a dwel ling 5,69 

" " family 5.36 

Natural militia, 18-44 264,033 



Counties. 1880. 

Accomac 24,408 

Albemarle 32,618 

Alexandria 17, 5*6 

Alleghany 5,586 

Amelia 10. 377 

Amherst 18,7 9 

Appomattox io,o8a 

Augusta 35,710 

Bath 4,482 

Bedford 31,205 

Bland 5,004 

Botetourt 14,809 

Brunswick 16,707 

Buchanan 5.694 

Buckingham 15.540 

Campbell 36,250 

Caroline 17,243 

Carroll 13.323 

Charles City 5.512 

Charlotte 16,653 

Chesterfield 25,085 

Clarke 7,682 

Craig 3,7P4 

Culpeper 13,4^8 

Cumberland 10.540 

Dinwiddle 32,870 

Elizabeth City 10,689 

Essex 11,032 

Fairfax 16,025 

Fauquier 22,993 

Floyd 13,255 

Fluvanna 10,802 

Franklin 25,084 

Frederick 17, 553 

Giles 8,794 

Gloucester 11,876 

Goochland 10,292 

Grayson 13,068 

Greene 5,830 

Greensville...,;.. 8,407 

Halifax 3^,588 

Hanover 18,588 

Henrico 82,733 

Henry 16,009 

Highland 5.164 

Isle of Wight 10,572 

James City 5.422 

King and Queen 10,502 

King George 6,397 

King William 8,751 



10,313 

9.587 

4,654 

6,362 

27,828 

16,455 

66,179 

12,303 

4,151 

8,320 

4-425 

9.709 

5,742 

7,515 



i860. 
18.586 
26,625 

12,6=2 
6.765 

10,741 

13 742 
8,889 

27,749 
3,676 

25,068 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



1870. 
20,409 
27.544 
16,755 

3,674 

9,^78 
14,930 

8.950 
28,763 

3.795 
25.327 

4,000 

11,329 
13-427 

13,371 

28,384 

15,128 

9,147 

4,975 

14,513 

18,470 

6,673 

2,942 

12,227 

8,142 

30.702 

8,303 

9.927 

12,952 

19 690 

9,824 

9.875 
18,264 
16,596 

5,875 



1880. 

6,ID3 
15,116 



11,516 
14,809 

2.793 
15,212 
26,197 
18,464 

8,012 

5.609 
14,471 
19,016 

7,146 

3,553 
I2,c63 

9,961 
30,198 I 

5,798 
10,469 I 
11,834 I 
21,706 I 

8,236 I 

10,353 , 

20,098 I 

16,546 

6,883 

10,956 

10,656 

8,252 

5.o'.i2 

6,374 

26,520 

17,222 

61,616 

12,105 

4.319 

9.977 

5,798 

10,328 

6,571 

8,530 



:6 
13,052 

9.965 
12,833 
52,^89 

7,817 
14,668 



Counties. 

Lancaster 

Lee 

Loudoun 23,634 

Louisa 18,912 

Lunenburg ii,535 

Madison 10, '62 

Mathews 7.501 

Mecklenburg 24,610 

Middlesex 6,252 

Montgomery 16,693 

Nansemond 15,903 

Nelson 16,556 

New Kent 5,';i5 

Norfolk 58,637 

Northampton 9,152 

Northumberland 7 929 

Nottoway 

Orange 

Page....... 

Patrick..'.' 

Pittsylvania 

Powhatan 

Prince Edward 

Prince George 10,054 

Princess Anne 9-394 

Prince William 9,180 

Pulaski 8,755 

Rappahannock 9,291 

Richmond 7, 195 

Roanoke 13,105 

Rockb.-id.?e 20,003 

Rocknigham 29,567 

Russell 13,906 

Scott 17.233 

Shenandoah 18,204 

Smyth 12,160 

Southampton 18,012 

Spotsylvania 14,828 

Stafford 7. 211 

Surry 7,391 

Sussex 10,062 

Tazewell 12,861 

Warren 7,j99 

Warwick 2,258 

Washington 2=^,203 

Westmoreland 8,846 

Wise 7.772 

Wythe 14,318 

York 7,349 



1870. 

5,355 
13 268 
20,929 
16,332 
10,403 
8,670 
6,200 
21,318 
4,981 
12,556 
11,576 
13,898 
4,381 
46,702 
8,046 
6,863 
9,291 
10,396 
8,462 
10,161 

3', 343 

7,667 

12,004 

7,820 

8,273 

7,504 

6,538 

8,261 

6,503 

9,350 

16,058 

23,668 

11,103 

13,036 

14,936 

8,898 

12,285 

11,728 

6,420 

5,585 

7,885 

10,791 

5.716 

1,672 

16.816 

7,682 

4.785 

11,611 

7,198 



i860. 

5,151 

11,032 

21,774 

16,701 

11,983 

8,854 

7,091 

20,096 

4,364 

10,617 

13,693 

13,015 

5,884 

36,227 

7,832 

7,531 

8,836 

10,851 

8,109 

9,359 

32,104 

8,392 

11,844 

8,411 

7.714 

8,565 

5,416 

8,850 

6,856 

8,048 

17,248 

23,4-8 

10,280 

12,072 

13,896 

8,952 

12,915 

16,076 

8,555 

6,133 

10,175 

9,920 

6,442 

1.740 

16,892 

8,282 

4,508 

12,305 

4,949 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 7 ; instructors, 71 ; students, 956. 

Public schools, 4,876; value of school property, ;^ 1,246, 283; 
teachers, 4,933 ; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^896,274; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^ 1, 287, 5 26; expended for same (1882), ;^i,i57r 
142; school age, 5-21 years; school population (1882), 555,- 



414 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

897; pupils enrolled (1882), 257,362 ; average attendance (1882^, 
144,904 ; average length of school year in 1882, 118. 2 days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 360,495, be- 
ing 34 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons 
over ten years who cannot write : native white, 1 13,915 ; foreign 
white, 777 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 315,660; total, 430,- 
352, being 40.6 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 20; others, 175 ; total, 195. Circulation, 258,228. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 254,099; 
in professional and personal services, 146,664; in trade and trans- 
portation, 30,418; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 

63.059- 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 118,517; total acres 
in farms, 19,835,785; improved acres, 8,510,113; average size 
of farms, 167 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^2 16,028,- 
107; value of implements, ;^5,495,ii4; total value of all farm 
products, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^45,726,22l. 

Principal Producis. 



Quantity. 

Barley 14.223 bush. 

Buckwheat 136,004 '• 

Butler 11,470,923 lbs. 

Cheese 85,535 " 

Cotton I9>595 bales. 

Hay 287,255 tons. 

Hops 1 ,599 lbs. 

Indian Corn 29,119,761 bush. 

Milk 1,224,469 galls. 

Live- Stock. 



Quantity. 

Onts 5.333.1^1 l^ush. 

Orchard products $1,609,663 

Potatoes, Irish 2,016,766 bush. 

" sweet..;.... 1,901,521 " 

Rye 324,431 " 

Tobacco 79,988,868 lbs. 

Wheat 7,826,174 bush. 

Wool 1,836,673 lbs. 



Number. 

Other cattle 388,414 

Sheep 497,289 

Swine 95^,45 1 



Number. 

Horses 218,838 

Mules and asses 33,598 

Working oxen 54,709 

Milch cows 243,061 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June I, 1880 1^25,953,315 

MANUFACTURES. — Number of establishments, 5,710; cap- 
ital invested, ;^ 26,968, 990 ; hands employed, 40,184; wages 
paid, ^7,425,261 ; value of material, ;^32,883,933 ; value of pro- 
ducts, ;^5 1,780,992. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Agricultural implements ^602,959 1 Carriages and wagons j^5o8,400 

Bakery products 644,560 | Clothing, men's 584,077 



RULING BY STATES. 41 5 



Cotton goods ;^i,040,962 

Fertilizers 624,300 

Flour and mill products 12,210,272 

Machinery . . 1,361,231 

Iron and steel 2,585,999 

Leather, tinned 1,01 1,830 

Lumber, planed and sawed.. , 3,718,163 



Printing and publishing $624,975 

Slaughtering and packing. . . . 1,054,500 

Tin and coppervvare 608,150 

Tobacco and cigars 13,714,991 

Tobacco stemming 1,074,005 

Woollen goods 577>968 



Total steam and water power in use, 57,174 horse-power. 
iffiV/A^C".— Quantity : 

Value. 

Gold j?9,32i 

Coal, anthracite 2,6oo tons 7,800 

Coal, b.tumiiious 40,520 ** 92,837 

Iron ore 169,683 " 384.331 

Lead ore 11,200 *^* 33,ooo 

Zinc ore 10,448 " 24,126 

Copper ingots 678 lbs. 

Minor minerals 179,125 

Total value of mineral products $730,540 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K^\\ro2ids in 1883, 2,737 
miles of line; miles operated, 2,611: cost, ;^ 15 4,640,870; total 
investment, ;^ 174,97 5, 172. Total length of canal and slack- 
water lines, 74.56 miles ; cost, ^4,042,363. Steam craft, 89 ; ton- 
nage, 6,251; value, ;^494,400. Sail craft, 1,061; tonnage) 26,- 
638; value, 1^665,950. Canal boats, barges and flats, 131; 
tonnage, 8,731 ; value, ;^5 2,950. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1881), ;^234,272,95i ; of personal property, ^70,391,078. State 
taxation ( 1 881), rate 50 cents on ^100, ;^i,523,320; county taxa- 
tion, ;^ 1,1 70,41 3; city, town and village, ;^ 1, 5 5 3, 297. State debt 
(1881), all funded, ;^29,6i4,793 ; county, city and town debt, 
;^I2,754,576. 

GOVERNMENT— Capital Richmond. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^5,ooo. The other State officers, all chosen 
for four years, or at the pleasure of the Governor, are : Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, salary, ;^900; Secretary of State, ;^2,500; 
Treasurer, ;^2,ooo; Auditor, ;^3,ooo; Second Auditor, ;^2,ooo; 
Attorney-General, ;^3,500; Superintendent Board Public In- 
struction, ;^2,ooo ; Adjutant-General, ^1,100; Commissioner of 
Agriculture, ;^i,500; Superintendent of Lands, ;^i,300; Railroad 
Commissioner; State Librarian. 

The Legislature is composed of 40 Senators and 100 Repre- 



416 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



sentatlves. Senators are chosen for four years ; Representatives 
for two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^540 a year. Legislature 
meets biennially on first Wednesday in December. Session 
limited to 90 days. 

State, Congressional and Presidential elections held on Tues- 
day after first Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a President Judge and four asso- 
ciates, elected by the Legislature for twelve years. Salary of 
President Judge, ;^3,250. Salary of associates, ;^3,ooo each. 

Representaiives in Congress, 10; Presidential electors, 12. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 



Dem. 

1872 President 91,440 

1873 Governor 127,738 

1876 President 139,670 

1877 Governor 101,940 

1880 President 9^,599 

1881 Governor 99,757 

1882 Cong, at Large 94,184 



Rep. Readj. Maj. 

93,4'S 1,975 R- 

93.499 34,2390- 

95.55^ 44,112 D. 

4,329 97,611 D. 

83,642 31,484 12,957 D- 

111,473 11,716 Read. 

99,992 5,808 Read. 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 



NAME. — In honor of Washington. 

ORGANIZATION.— Y^x^qX.^^ into a Territory, March 2, 1853. 
AREA. — Square miles, 66,880; acres, 42,803,200; persons to 
a square mile, 1.12. 

POPULATION and rate of increase: 



Census. Pop. 

i860 11,594 

1870 23,955 



Per cent of 
increase. 



Census. 
1880... 



Male.... 45,973 Native.... 59,313 

Female.. 29,143 Foreign.. 15,803 

Dwellings 15,512 

Families. 16,380 

Voters — Males over 21 27,670 



106.6 
1880 by Classes. 
White, 



Pop. 
75,"6 



Per cent, of 
increase. 
2135 



Black , 



67,199 
325 



Chinese 
Indians 



Persons to a dwelling. . 

" " family . . . 

Natural militia, 18-44. 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Chehalus 921 

Clallam : 638 

Clarki 5.490 

Columbia 7,103 



1870. 
401 
408 

3, 08 1 



186c. 
285 
149 

2,384 



Counties. 

Cowlitz 

Island 

Jefferson ... 
King., 



1880. 
2,062 
1,087 
1,712 
6,910 



1870. 

730 

626 

1,268 

2,120 



•3,187 
•4,405 
. 4.84 

• 4-59 
22,542 



i860. 
406 
294 
531 
302 



RULING BY STATES. 



417 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continuea. 



Counties. 1880. 

Kitsap 1,738 

Klikitat 4,055 

Lewis 2, 6 JO 

Mason 639 

Pacific 1,645 

Pierce 3,319 

San Juan 948 

Skamania Scg 

Snohomish 1,387 



1870. 
866 



329 
888 



73» 
1,409 

554 
133 

599 



i860. 

544 
230 
384 
162 
420 
I, "5 



Counties. 1880. 

Spokane 4,262 

Stevens 1,245 

Thurston 3.270 

Wahkiakum i,'9^ 

Walla Walla 8,716 

Whatcom 3,^37 

Whitman 7,014 

Yakima 2,811 



1870. 


i860. 




996 


734 




2,246 


1,507 


270 


42 


5,3 


1,318 


534 


352 


432 





EDUCATION. — Colleges, 2; instructors, 12; students, 244. 

Public schools, 531; value of school property, ;^i6i,309; 
teachers, 532; teachers* salaries, ^5,582; receipts for school 
purposes, ;^I20,549; expended for same, ;^ 11 2,61 5 ; school age, 
4-21 years; school population (188 r), 23,899; pupils enrolled 
(1881), 14,754; average attendance, 10,456. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 3,191, being 5.7 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten years 
who cannot write: native white, 895; foreign white, 534; col- 
ored, Chinese and Indians, 2,460; total, 3,889, being 7 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 4; others, 25 ; total, 29. Circulation, 17,141. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 12,781 ; 
in professional and personal services, 6,640 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 3,405 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 7,- 
296. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 6,529; total acres in 
farms, 1,409,421; improved acres, 484,346; average size of 
farms, 216 acres; value of farms and buildings, 1^13,844,224; 
value of implements, ;^958,573 ; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^4,2I2,750. 



Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Bnrley 566,537 bush. 

Buckwheat 2,498 " 

Butter 1,356,103 lbs. 

Cheese 109,200 " 

Hay 106,819 tons. 

Hops 703,277 lbs. 

Indian Corn 39,183 bush. 

Milk 226,703 galls. 

27 



Quantity. 

Oats 1,571,706 bush. 

Orchard products ^127,668 

Potatoes, Irish 1,035,177 bush. 

Rye 7,124 " 

Tobacco 6,930 lbs. 

Wheat 1,921,322 bush. 

Wool 1,389,123 lbs. 



418 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Live-Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 45,848 

Mules and asses 626 

Working oxen 3,821 

Milch cows 27,622 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ;$4,852,307 



Number. 

Other cattle 103,111 

Sheep 292,883 

Swine 46,828 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umh^r of establishments, 261; cap- 
ital invested, ;^3, 202,497; hands employed, 1,147; wages paid, 
;^5 32,226; value of material, ;^ 1,967 ,469; value of products, 
^3,250,134. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Lumber, sawed 5i, 734,742 | All other industries ^1,515,392 

Total steam and water power in use, 4,395 horse-power. 
MINING.— Qud.nt\ty : 

Value. 

Gold $135,800 

Silver 1,019 

Coal, bitummous 145,015 tons 389,046 



Total value of mineral products ^525,865 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K3.{\vo?ids in 1883, 37 miles 
of line ; miles operated, 22; cost, $885,000; total investment, 
;^885,ooo. Steam craft, 52; tonnage, 6,805; value, $537,300. 
Sail craft, 62 ; tonnage, 23,389; value, $584,700. Barges, 18; 
value, $2,600. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— Assessed value of real and 
personal estate (1883), $44,107,567. Territorial taxation (1883), 
$110,267; county taxation, $393,150; city, town and district, 
$40,471. Territorial debt, none; county, city and town debt, 
$239,311. 

GOVERNMENT— C2.^p\t3\, Olympia. Governor appointed 
by the President and Senate for four years. Salary, $2,600. 
The other territorial officers are, a Secretary, term four years, 
salary, $1,800; Treasurer, two years, $1,200; Auditor, two 
years, $1,200; Superintendent of Public Instruction, two years, 
$1,000; State Librarian, $400.. 

The Legislature is composed of 12 Senators and 24 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator, 



RULING BY STATES. 



419 



$4. a day and 20 cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially 
on first Monday in October. Session limited to 60 days. 

Territorial elections held biennially on Tuesday after the first 
Monday in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two Asso- 
ciate Justices, appointed by the President and Senate for four 
years. Salary of each, ;^3,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, i Delegate. 

P(9Z/77r5.— Vote for Delegate: 

Rep. 

1880 8,810 

1882 11,252 



Dem. 


Maj. 


7,013 


1,797 R. 


8,244 


3,008 R. 



WEST VIRGINIA. 




NAME. — So named as lying West of Virginia. 

ADMISSION,— Act of admission, Dec. 31, 1862; actual 
admission, June 19, 1863. Before that a part of Virginia. 

AREA. — Square miles, 24,645 ; acres, 15,772,800; persons to 
a square mile, 25.09. 

POPULATION 2.nd rate of increase: 

Census. Pop. Per cent, of 

1870 442,014 increase. 

1880 618,457 39-9 



Male.... 3 1 4,495 

Female. .303,962 Foreign. . . . 18,265 

Dwellings 108,349 

Families 111,732 

Voters — Males over 21 139,161 



1880 by Classes. 
Native 600,192 White. .. .592,537 Chinese,. 



Black. . . , 25,886 Indians 29 

Persons to a dwelling 5. 71 

Persons to a family 5.54 

Natural militia, 18-44 114,664 



420 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Barbour 11,870 

Berkeley i7>38o 

BooHe 5.824 

Braxton 9,787 

Brooke 6,013 

Cabell 13,744 

Calhoun 6,072 

Clay 3,460 

Doddridge 10,552 

Fayette 11,560 

Gilmer 7, 108 

Grant... 5,542 

Greenijrier 15,060 

Hampshire 10,366 

Hancock 4,882 

Hardy 6,794 

Harrison 20,181 

Jackson 16,312 

Jeflferson 15,005 

Kanawha 32,466 

Lewis 13,269 

Lincoln 8,739 

Logan 7,329 

McDowell 3,074 

Marion 17,198 

Marshall 18,840 

Mason 22,293 



1870. 


i860. 


10,312 


8,958 


14,900 


12,525 


4,553 


4,840 


6,480 


4,992 


5.464 


5,494 


6,429 


8,020 


2,939 


2,502 




1,787 


7,076 


5.203 


6,647 


5,997 


4,338 


3,759 


4,467 




",417 


12,211 


7,643 


13,913 


4,363 


4,445 


5,518 


9,864 


16,714 


13.790 


10,300 


8,306 


i3>2i9 


14,535 


22,349 


16,150 


10,175 


7,999 


5,053 




5.124 


4,93*8 


1,952 


1,535 


12,107 


12,722 


14,941 


12,997 


15,978 


9.173 



Counties. 18S0. 

Mercer 7,467 

Mineral 8,630 

Monongalia 14.985 

Monroe 11,501 

Morgan 5,777 

Nicholas 7,223 

Ohio 37,457 

Pendleton 8,022 

Pleasants 6,256 

Pocahontas 5,59i 

Preston 19,091 

Putnam ii>375 

Raleigh 7,367 

Randolph 8,102 

Ritchie I3,474 

Roane 12,184 

Summers 9,033 

Taylor ii,455 

Tucker 3,151 

Tyler 11,073 

Upshur 10,249 

Wayne i4,739 

Webster 3,207 

Wetzel 13,896 

Wirt 7,104 

Wood 25,006 

Wyoming 4,322 



1870. 


i860. 


7,064 


6,819 


6,332 




13,547 


13.048 


11,124 


10,757 


4,315 


3.732 


4,458 


4,627 


28,831 


22,422 


6,455 


6,164 


3,012 


2,945 


4,069 


3.958 


14.555 


13.312 


7,794 


6,301 


3.673 


3,367 


5,563 


4,990 


9,055 


6,847 


7,232 


5,381 


9-367 


7,463 


1,907 


1,428 


7,832 


6,517 


8,023 


7,29* 


7,852 


6,747 


1,730 


1,555 


8,595 


6,783 


4,804 


3,751 


19,000 


11,046 


3,171 


2,861 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 3; instructors, 33 ; students, 278. 

Public schools, 3,874; value of school property, $i,6^6,ggg\ 
teachers, 4,156; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^553,509; receipts for 
school purposes, ;^875,9i3 ; expended for same (1882), ;^879,820; 
school age, 6-21 years; school population (1882), 216,605; 
pupils enrolled (1882), 155,544; average attendance (1882), 
96,652 ; average length of school year in 1882, 99 days. 

Persons over ten years who cannot read, 52,041, being 12.1 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over ten 
years who cannot write : native white, 72,826 ; foreign white, 
2,411 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 10,139; total, 85,376, being 
19.9 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 2 ; others, 107 ; total, 109. Circulation, 89,- 
283. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 107,578; 
in professional and personal services, 31,680; in trade and 
transportation, 10,653 5 i^^ manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
26,288. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 62,674; total acres in 
farms, 10,193,779; improved acres, 3,792,327; average size of 
farms, 163 acres; value of farms and buildings, ;^I33, 147,175 ; 
value of implements, ^^2,699, 163; total value of farm products, 
sold, consumed or on hand, ;^ 19,360,049. 



RULING BY STATES. 



421 



Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 9,740 bush. 

Buckwheat 285,298 " 

Butler 9j309j5I7 l^s. 

Cheese 100,300 " 

Hay 232,338 tons. 

Indian Corn 14,090,609 bush. 

Milk 750*279 gal. 

Oats . 1,908,505 bush. 



Quantity. 

Orchard products ^934,400 

Potatoes, Irish i>398,539 bush. 

" sweet 87,214 " 

Rye 113,181 bush. 

Tobacco 2,296,146 lbs. 

Wheat 4,001,71 1 bush. 

Wool 2,681,444 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



I Number. 

Horses 126, 143 

Mules and asses 6,226 

Working oxen 12,643 

Milch cows.; 156,956 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 ^^17, 742,387 



Number. 

Other cattle 288,845 

Sheep 674,769 

Swine 510,613 



MANUFACTURES. — Numberof establishments, 2,375 ; capi- 
tal invested, ^13,883,390; hands employed, 14,311; wages paid, 
;^4,3 13,965 ; value of materials, ;^I4,027,388; value of products, 
^^22,867, 1 26. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Flour and mill products ^3,942,818 

Foundry and machine-shop 

products 466,862 

Glass 748,500 

Iron and steel 6,054,032 



Leather, tanned and curried. .;^2, 176,538 
Lumber, planed and sawed, . 2,784,407 

Salt 380,369 

Tobacco and cigars 452,993 

Woollen goods 356,986 



Total steam and water power in use, 37,910 horse-power 
J//iV/A^6^.— Quantity : 



Value. 
1,971,847 

88,595 
4,500 



Coal, bituminous 1,792,570 tons 

Iron ore 60,371 " 

Minor minerals 

Total value of all mineral products ^2,064,942 

Add 200,000 barrels Petroleum, @, ^i.oo for crude 200,000 

Grand total of all mineral products $2,264,942 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— l^mXrod^ds in 1883, 258 
miles of line; miles operated, 168; cost, ;^I2,923,502 ; total 
investment, ;^ 18, 182, 11 6. Steam craft, 61 ; tonnage, 7,497 ; value, 
;^3 12,600. Barges and flats, 450; tonnage, 56,707 tons; value, 
|>2o6,ooo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION.— Assessed value of real estate 
(1882), ;^ 106,9 10,444; of personal property, ^39,637,735. State 



422 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

taxation (1882), rate 30 cents on ;^ioo, ;^6oo,992 ; county taxa- 
tion, $76g,\;^8; city, town and village, $yo6,6^g. State debt, 
none ; debt prohibited in Constitution ; county, city and town 
debts, ^1,513,424. 

GO VBRNM£NT.—C3ipita\, Wheeling. Governor elected for 
four years. Salary, ;^2,700. The other State officers, all chosen 
for four years, or at the pleasure of the Governor, are : Secre- 
tary of State, salary, ;^ 1,000; Treasurer, ;^ 1,400; Auditor, $2,- 
000; Superintendent of Schools, ^1,500; Attorney-General, $i,- 
000; Adjutant-General, ;^250 ; State Librarian, ;^700. 

The Legislature is composed of 26 Senators and 65 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators chosen for four years ; Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, $4. a day and 10 cents mile- 
age. Legislature meets biennially on second Wednesday in 
January. Session limited to 45 days. 

State elections held biennially on second Tuesday in October. 
Presidential elections on Tuesday after first Monday in No- 
vember. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Presiding Judge and three 
Associate Judges, elected by the people for a term of twelve 
years. Salary of each, ;^2,250. 

Representatives in Congress, 4 ; Presidential electors, 6. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Dem. Rep. Ind. and Grbk. Maj. 

1872 Governor 40,305 42,883 2,578 Ind. 

1872 President 29,537 32,283 600 2,746 R. 

1876 " 56,565 42,001 14,564 D. 

1876 Governor 56,206 43>477 12,7290. 

1880 President 57539' 46,243 9j079 11,148 D. 

1880 Governor 58,407 43,072 12,326 15,3350. 

1882 Supreme Judge.. 46,661 43,440 3,221 D. 



RULING BY STATES. 



423 




WISCONSIN. 

NAME. — From the river Wisconsin. It is Indian, according 
to some, and means " wild rushing channel." According to 
others it is a French corruption of an Indian word meaning 
" westward flowin^g." Popular name, " Badger State." 

^Z>J//55/6>iV.— Erected into a Territory, April 20, 1836. 
Act of admission dated March 3, 1847. Actual admission, May 
29, 1848. 

AREA. — Square miles, 54,450; acres, 34,848,000; persons to 
a square mile, 24.16. 

POPULATION diXid rate of increase : 



Census. Pop, 

1840 30.945 

1850 305.391 

i860 775,881 



Per cent, of 
increase. 

886.8 
154.0 



Census. Pop. 

1870 1,054,670 

1880 1,315.497 



Per cent, of 



increase. 



35-9 
24.7 



[880 by Classes. 



Male 680,069 Native... 910,072 

Female. ..635,428 Foreign.. 405.425 

Dwellings 239,361 

Families 251 ,530 

Voters — Males over 21 340,482 



\\hite.. ..1,309,618 Chinese 16 

Black 2,702 Indians.. ..3,161 

Persons to a dwelling 5.50 

" " family 5.23 

Natural militia, 18-44 256,434 



By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 

Adams 6,741 

Ashland i,559 

Barron 7.024 

Bayfield 564 

Brown 34>o78 

Buffalo 15,528 

Burnet 3,140 

Calumet 16,632 

Chippewa 15.491 

Clark 10,715 

Columbia 28,065 

Crawford 15,644 

Dane 53.233 



1870. 

6,601 

221 

538 

344 

25,168 

11,123 

706 

12,335 

8,3" 

3,450 

28,802 

13,075 

53.096 



i860. 

6,492 

515 

13 

353 

11,795 

3,864 

12 

7,895 

1,895 



24,441 
8.068 



45. 



Counties. 

Dodge 

Door n 

Douglas 

Dunn 16 

Eau Claire 19 

Fond du Lac 46 

Grant 37 

Green 21 

Green Lake 14 

Iowa 23 

iackson 13 

efferson 32 

uneau 15 



80. 


1870. 


i860. 


931 


47,03s 


42,818 


645 


4.919 


2.948 


bSS 


1,122 


812 


817 


9,488 


2,7^4 


,993 


10,769 


3,162 


,8S9 


46,273 


34,154 


.852 


37.979 


31,189 


729 


23,611 


19,808 


,48^ 


13,195 


12,663 


,628 


24,544 


18.967 


,285 


7.687 


4.170 


,i=;6 


34.040 


30.438 


,582 


12,3.2 


8,770 



424 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



By Counties for three Censuses — Continued. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Kenosha 13,550 13,147 13.900 

Kewaunee 15,807 10,128 5,530 

La Crosse 27,073 20,297 12,186 

La Fayette 21,279 22,659 18,134 

Langlade 685 

Lincoln 2,011 

Manitowoc 37,505 33,364 22,416 

Marathon 17,121 5,885 2,892 

Marinette 8,929 

Marquette 8,908 8,056 8,233 

Milwaukee 138,537 89,930 62,518 

Monroe 21,607 16,550 8,410 

Oconto 9,848 8,321 3,502 

Outagamie 28,716 18,430 9,587 

Ozaukee 15,461 15,564 15,682 

Pepin 6,226 4,659 2,392 

Pierce 17, 744 9,958 4,672 

Polk 10,018 3,422 1,400 

Portage 17,73^ 10,634 7>507 



Counties. 1 880. 

Price 785 

Racine 30,922 

Richland 18,174 

Rock... 38,823 

Saint Croix 18,956 

Sauk 28,729 

Shawano 10,371 

Sheboygan 34,206 

Taylor 2,311 

Trempealeau 17,189 

Vernon 23,235 

Walworth 26,249 

Washington 23,442 

Waukesha 28,957 

Waupaca 20,955 

Waushara 12,687 

Winnebago 42,740 

Wood 8.081 



1870. 

26,740 
15,731 
39,030 
11,035 
23,860 
3,166 
31,749 



i860. 

21,360 

9,732 
36,690 

5,392 

18,963 

829 

26,875 



10,732 
18,645 
25,972 
23.919 
28,274 

15,539 
11,279 

37,279 
3,912 



2,560 
11,007 
26,496 
23,622 
26,831 

8,851 

8,770 
23,770 

2,425 



EDUCATION. — Colleges, 7; instructors, IC9; students, i,- 

435. 

Public schools, 6,588; value of school property, ;^5,287,570; 
teachers, 7,000; teachers' salaries (1882), ;^ 1,437,349; receipts 
for school purposes, ^^2,701, 41 3 ; expended for same (1882), $2^- 
132,807; school age, 4-20 years; school population (1882), 
495,233; pupils enrolled (1882), 303,452; average attendance 
(1881), 190,878; average length of school year in 1881, 175.6 
days. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 38,693, being 
4 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write : native white, 1 1 ,494 ; foreign white, 
42,739 ; colored, Chinese and Indians, 1,325 ; total, 55,558, being 
5.8 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 21 ; others, 319; total, 340. Circulation, 

446,392. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 195,901 ; 
in professional and personal service, 97,494 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 37,550; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
86,510. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 134,322 ; total acres in 
farms, 15,353,118; improved acres, 9,162,528; average size of 
farms, 114 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^^3 5 7,709,507 ; 
value of implements, ;^I5,647,I96; total value of all farm pro- 
ducts, sold, consumed or on hand, ;^72,779,496. 



RULING BY STATES. 



425 



Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Barley 5,043,118 bush. 

Buckwheat 299,107 " 

Butter 33.353»045 lbs. 

Cheese 2,281,411 " 

Hay 1 ,896,969 tons. 

Hops 1,966,827 lbs. 

Indian Corn 34,230,579 bush. 

Milk 25,156,977 galls. 



Quantity. 

Oats 32,905,320 bush. 

Orchard products ^639,435 

Potatoes, Irish 8,509,161 bush. 

" sweet 7,124 " 

Rye 2,298,573 " 

Tobacco 10,608,423 lbs. 

Wheat ..24,884,689 bush. 

Wool 7,016,491 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 

Number. 
Horses . .. 352,428 



Mules and asses. 7, 136 

Working oxen 28,762 

Milch cows 478,374 

Value of all live-stock on farms, June i 



Number. 

Other cattle 622,005 

Sheep 1,336,807 

Swine 1,128,825 



[880 ^46,508,643 



MANUFACTURES.— ^umhQY of establishments, 7,674; capi- 
tal invested, ;^73, 82 1,802 ; hands employed, 57,109; wages paid, 
^18,814,917 ; value of material, ;^85,796,i78 ; value of products, 
^128,255,480. 

The principal manufactures are : 



Agricultural implements... ^3,742,069 

Boots and shoes I>736,773 

Bakery products 697,289 

Brick and tile 607,609 

Carriages and wagons 4,350,454 

Cheese and butter 1,501,087 

Clothing, men's 4,883,797 

Cooperage 1,563,208 

Flour and mill products. . . 27,639,430 

Machinery 3,965,652 

Furniture 1,225,933 

Chairs 951,240 



Iron and steel ^6,580,391 

Leather, tanned and curried, 8,821,162 

Liquors, malt and distilled.. 6,614,386 

Lumber, planed and sawed. 18,471,725 

Paper 1,277,736 

Printing and publishing... 1,093,510 

Saddlery and harness 1,064,235 

Sashes and doors 2,975,687 

Slaughtering and packing. . 6,533,926 

Tobacco and cigars 2,325,206 

Woollen goods 1,480,069 



Total steam and water power in use, 106,085 horse-power. 
MINING.— Q uantity : 



Value. 



Iron oi^e 

Lead ore 

Zinc ore 

Copper ingots.. , 
Minor minerals. 



41,440 tons. 
1,728 " 

4,617 " 
18,087 ll^s. 


^73,000 
78,525 
64,562 

1,549 




100,000 
^^17.6^6 



Total of all mineral products 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— Rsiilroads in 1883, 5,744 
miles of line; miles operated, 5,538; cost, ^196,838,962; 
total value, ;^ 192,822,796. Steam craft, 177; tonnage, 19,249; 



426 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

value, ;^i,020,400. Sail craft, 258; tonnage, 50,800; value, $1,- 
270,000. Barges and flats, 45 ; value, ;^32,6oo. 

FINANCIAL CONBITION— Assessed value of real estate 
(1883), ^353P68,4I3 ; of personal property, ^103,256,758. State 
taxation (1883), rate 15.5 cents on ;^ioo, ;^975,93i ; county tax- 
ation, ^1,995,990; city, town and district, ;^3, 384,882. State 
debt (1883), all funded, ;^2, 252,057; county, city and town debts, 
;$9,624,935. 

GO V£RNMENT.— Capital, Madison. Governor elected (after 
1885) for two years. Salary, ;^5,ooo. The other State officers, 
their terms being for three years until 1885, when they will be 
in general for two years, are: Lieutenant-Governor, ;^ 1,000; 
Secretary of State, ;^5,ooo; Treasurer, ;^5,ooo; Attorney-Gen- 
eral, ;^3,ooo; Adjutant-General, ;^50o; Superintendent Public 
Schools, ;^3, 700; Secretary Agricultural Society, one year, ;^ 2,- 
000; Insurance Commissioners, $3,000; Railroad Commissioner, 
;^3,ooo; State Librarian, ;^i,5oo. 

The Legislature is composed of 33 Senators, and 100 Repre- 
sentatives. Senators elected for four years. Representatives for 
two years. Salary of a Legislator, ;^500 and 10 cents mileage. 
Legislature meets biennially on second Wednesday in January. 
No limit to length of session. 

State elections held biennially after 1885, and with Congres- 
sional and Presidential elections on Tuesday after first Monday 
in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and four Asso- 
ciate Justices, chosen by the people for ten years. Salary of each, 
;^5,ooo. 

Representatives in Congress, 9; Presidential electors, 11. 

POLITICS for twelve years : 

Rep. 

1872 President 104,992 

1873 Governor 66,224 

1876 President 130,067 

1877 Governor 78,753 

1880 President 144,398 

1881 Governor 81,754 



Dem. 


Grbk. 


Maj. 


86,487 





18,505 R. 


81,653 





15,4290. 


23,926 





6,141 R. 


70,482 




8,271 R. 


14,644 


7,896 


29,754 R. 


69,797 


13.225 


11,957 R. 



RULING BY STATES. 427 

WYOMING TERRITORY. 

NAME. — Suggested by valley of same name in Pennsylvania. 
ORGANIZATION,— ExqqX.qA into a Territory, July 25, 1868. 
AREA. — Square miles, 97,575 ; acres, 62,448,000; persons to 
a square mile, 0.21. 

POPULA TION and rate of increase : 

Census. Pop. Per cent of 

1870 9,118 increase. 

1880 20,789 127.9 

1880 by Classes. 

Male.,.. 14,152 Native I4»939 White 19,437 Chinese.. 914 

Female.. 6,637 Foreign.... 5,850 Black,... 298 Indians.. 140 

Dwellings 4,282 Persons to a dwelling 4.85 

Families 4,604 " " family 4.52 

Voters— Males over 21 10,180 Natural militia, 18-44 9,75 1 

By Counties for three Censuses. 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Albany 4,626 2,021 

Carbon 3.438 i>368 

Crook 239 

Johnson 637 



Counties. 1880. 1870. i860. 

Laramie '.. 6,409 2,957 

Sweetwater 2,561 1,916 

Uinta 2,879 856 



EDUCATION. — Public schools, 55; value of school prop- 
erty, ;^40, 500 ; teachers, 70; teachers' salaries, ;^25, 894; receipts 
for school purposes, ^36,161 ; expended for same, ^28,504; 
school age, 7-21 years; school population, 4,112; pupils en- 
rolled, 2,907; average attendance, 1,980. 

Persons over ten years of age who cannot read, 427, being 
2.6 per cent, of all persons over ten years of age. Persons over 
ten years who cannot write: native white, 177; foreign white, 
197; colored, Chinese and Indians, 182; total, 556, being 3.4 per 
cent, of all persons over ten years of age. 

Daily papers, 3; others, 7; total, 10. Circulation, 5,686. 

OCCUPATIONS. — Persons engaged in agriculture, 1,639; 
in professional and personal services, 4,011 ; in trade and trans- 
portation, 1,545 ; in manufacturing, mechanics and mining, 
1,689. 

AGRICULTURE. — Number of farms, 457; total acres in 
farms, 124,433; improved acres, 83,122; average size of farms, 
272 acres; value of farms and buildings, ^835,895; value of 
implements, ;^95,482 ; total value of all farm products, sold, con- 
sumed or on hand, ;^372,39i. 



428 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Principal Products. 



Quantity. 

Butter 105,643 lbs. 

Cheese 2,930 " 

Hay 23,413 tons. 

Milk 75.343 galls. 

Oats 22,512 bush. 



Quantity. 

Potatoes, Irish 30,986 bush. 

Rye 78 " 

Wheat 4,674 «* 

Wool 691,650 lbs. 



Live- Stock. 



Number. 

Horses 1 1.975 

Mules and asses 671 

Working oxen 7^8 

Milch cows 3.730 

Total value of live-stock on farms, June i, 1880 1^5*007,107 



Number. 

Other cattle 273,625 

Sheep 140,225 

Swine 567 



MANUFACTURES. — Number of establishments, 57; capi- 
tal invested, ;^346,673 ; hands employed, 391 ; wages paid, 
;^i87,798; value of material, ^601,214; value of products, ^^898,- 
494. 

The principal manufactures are : 

Iron and steel ^491,345 | All other industries .^55407,149 

Total steam and water power in use, 755 horse-power. 
J//A77\^6^.— Quantity : : 

Value. 

Gold ^17,321 

Coal, bituminous 5^9.595 tons i ,080,45 ' 

Total of all mineral products ^1,097,772 

COMMERCIAL FACILITIES.— K2.\\ro2.ds in 1883, 315 
miles of line ; miles operated, 293 ; cost, ;g8,700,000 ; total 
investment, ;^8,730,ooo. 

FINANCIAL CONDITION— AssQssQd value of real and 
personal property (1881), ;^i3,866,ii8. Territorial taxation 
(1882), rate 40 cents on ;^ioo, ;^5 5,465 ; county taxation, ;^I36,- 
000; city, town and village, ;^ 12,499. Territorial debt, none; 
county, city and town debt, ;^ 1 88,462. 

GOVERNMENT. — Capital, Cheyenne. Governor appointed 
by the President and Senate for four years. Salary, ;^2,6oo. The 
other Territorial officers are, a Secretary, term four years, salary, 
;^ 1,800; Treasurer, two years, ;^ 1,000; Auditor, two years, 
;^i,ooo; Superintendent of Public Instruction, two years, ;^400: 
Librarian, ;^400. 



RULING BY STATES. 429 

The Legislature is composed of 12 Senators and 24 Repre- 
sentatives, all elected for two years. Salary of a Legislator $4 a 
day and twenty cents mileage. Legislature meets biennially on 
second Tuesday in January. Session limited to 60 days. 

Territorial elections held biennially on Tuesday after first Mon- 
day in November. 

The Supreme Court consists of a Chief Justice and two As- 
sociate Justices, appointed by the President and Senate for four 
years. Salary of each, ^3,000. 

Representative in Congress, i Delegate. 

POLITICS.— Vote for Delegate : 

1880 

1882 



Dem. 


Rep. 


Maj. 


3,907 


3,760 


147 D. 


5»8i3 


4,702 


1,111 D. 




RULING THROUGH PARTIES; 

OR, 

ADMINISTRATIONS AND CONGRESSES. 

jARTIES IN GENERAL.— Party names do not always 
afford an index to party principles or professions. In 
this respect they are unfortunate. ** Whig " was origi- 
nally a term of reproach, and "Democrat" and 
" Jacobin " were mere epithets previous to 1825. So 
far as the names give a cue to principles there ought to be no 
difference between the existing " Republican " and " Democratic " 
parties. In such names as " Federal," ''Anti-Federal, " " Native- 
American," etc., one is provided with a key to the principles pro- 
fessed. 

Under our institutions issues are so transitory that parties 
are short-lived. Or if they retain their names a great while, they 
frequently cross their principles and change their professions. 
They are also often the victims of a seemingly inevitable drift, 
by which they get very far away from the intent of their founders, 
and so lose sight of original principles as to leave nothing but 
the party name as a rallying cry. Some of our best and purest 
parties, in the beginning, have moved illogically along in wider 
and wider departure from their first intent, until they either 
ruined themselves or brought trouble to the country. In such 
instances party is lost in partyism, and blind adherence to a ban- 
ner is mistaken for intelligent devotion to principle. 

USES OF PARTIES. — As embodiments of ignorance, preju- 
dice, passion, as a means of holding unthinking crowds, and 
wielding arbitrary, brutal power, parties are dangerous, even in 
a Republic. But as schools of thought, as orders representing 
(430) 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 431 

some vital principle, as a means of giving emphatic expression 
to some popular and useful wish, they are proper and necessary. 
Candid study of our institutions must impress one with the fact 
that in general the existence of political parties has been timely, 
and their effect wholesome. Each has answered a purpose, 
which, even if not presently needful or apparently good, has 
nevertheless served as a check on its opponents or as a stimulus 
to higher notions of activity. However much party principles 
may have ebbed and flowed, however far toward fanaticism, 
sectionalism and intrigue, certain minds, and orders of mind, 
may have drifted, it cannot be said that the spirit of liberty has 
suffered, or that respect for our institutions has been undermined, 
but that, on the contrary, the former is keener and the latter 
broader and deeper. Yet it is always well to remember Wash- 
ington's words, " that from the natural tendency of governments 
of a popular character, it is certain there will always be enough 
of party spirit for salutary purposes. And there being constant 
danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public 
opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, 
it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, 
lest, instead of warming, it should consume.'.' 

PRIMITIVE PARTIES.— ThQ Colonial period developed no 
parties as we now know them. The Colonies were disjointed 
governments, therefore there could be no national party. But 
there was always a sentiment against the right claimed by Par- 
liament to legislate for them. This sentiment grew warmer after 
the English revolution of 1688, which greatly strengthened the 
hands of Parliament and emboldened its assumptions. But it 
did not really crystalize in the Colonies till after the treaty of 
1763, by which Great Britain secured Canada and the Mississippi 
valley from France. Then it became a British policy to make 
the Colonies pay a part of the expenses of the war.* This policy 
brought that long list of burdens, such as customs dues, export 
taxes, excises. Tea Acts, Stamp Acts, etc., against which the 

* An excessive part of the expenses, for the English idea was that they should 
pay all they could be compelled to, inasmuch as the territory secured enured to 
their benefit. 



432 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 

Colonies unitedly remonstrated, not more because they were 
burdens, than because submission to them involved a surrender 
of the point that Parliament had no right to tax America with- 
out her consent. The respective Tory ministries in England 
favored Parliament. The Whigs (when out) favored the Colon- 
ists, or, at least, non-interference. Colonial thought, shaped on 
these lines, took these party expressions. As the Colonial Whigs 
grew warm in their opposition to Parliament, and the idea of 
union and independence advanced, " Whig " and '* Tory " became 
as familiar in America as in England, and the sentiment repre- 
sented by each as bitter. The Whig, who was at first only an 
opponent of Parliamentary claims, got to be a Colonial unionist, 
without separation from the mother country, then a unionist, 
with separation. The Tory remained the fast friend of English 
sovereignty on our soil, in whatever shape the powers at home 
chose to present it. 

PARTIES OF THE REVOLUTION.— -Yrom the above at- 
titude of parties one can readily see that after the fact of Inde- 
pendence (1776) the Tory party was without a mission. If a 
party at all, its sentiment was silenced amid arms. The Whig 
idea was uppermost and overwhelming. It meant vastly more 
than in the beginning. The Whigs were the revolutionary, 
armed party. They were the government, such as it was — the 
Congress first, and then the Confederation. The Tories were 
enemies, traitors if you please. Indeed, the term Whig began 
to mean so much that other words, comprehending more, came 
into use, as " Popular Party," " Party of Independence," " Amer- 
ican Party," " Liberty Party," " Patriots," and so on. This was 
the party situation from 1774 to 1778, in the Continental Con- 
gress and in the Colonial Legislatures. 

PARTIES OF THE CONFEDERATION.— Th^ event of 
the Confederation was forced by the Whigs. Their party name 
followed. The Articles of Confederation were a decisive advance 
of the federal idea, but as a government they were infinitely 
weaker than the arbitrary, revolutionary Congress. We have 
already seen their sources of weakness, how they fell into dis- 
respect at home and abroad, why it became necessary to sub- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 433 

stitute for them " a more perfect union." The Whig party 
dominated the Confederation. Less than ever was there a Tory- 
party. Toryism invited confiscation, proscription, banishment. 

^PARTIES OF THE CONSTITUTION.— With the peace 
of 1783, the Tory cause perished outright. Therefore there was 
no longer any need for the term Whig. The prevalent thought 
was the national one — how to unite more firmly, and for peace 
as well as war ? This was Federalism — the permanent one out 
of the disjointed many idea. The weaknesses of the Confedera- 
tion forced this thought along like a torrent, ripened it until it 
became the Constitution of the United States. Strictly speak- 
ing, there were no more two parties from 1783 to 1787, than 
from 1774 to 1783. Whigism became Federalism, and Whigs 
Federalists, and the thought of " a more perfect union " was as 
paramount as the thought of Independence, Union under a Con- 
gress or the Articles, and the victory of the Revolution. But it 
was a time of peace, and Federalism was a widely varying 
theme. It took all sorts of shapes in conventions, village groups 
and around the hearthstone. When it brought the convention 
which framed the Constitution, it was variant there. Debate 
took very wide range. Antagonisms were pointed and bitter. 
And debates in the State Conventions over the question of rati- 
fication took still wider range. But in all these contentions the 
central thought was not lost sight of Federalism, however col- 
ored or twisted, was still the aim. Starting away up among 
the few monarchy men of the convention, or of the States, and 
travelling down through the various orders of thought clear to 
the very few who repudiated union on any conditions, we find 
Federalism the regnant idea and crowning hope. All differences 
were as to form, time, construction, etc., not as to fact or neces- 
sity. The party of Federalism, that is, the Federal party, became 
the party of a new and stronger government, of the Constitution, 
just as the Whig party had been the party of Independence and 
the Continental Congress. 

" The Republicans are the nation," said Jefferson in the flush 
of political triumph. The Federals were the nation. Their con- 
ciliations and compromises in convention secured a Constitution. 
28 



434 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Their concessions, surrenders and appeals secured its ratification, 
speedily here, tardily there, reservedly in many instances, fully 
in others. We therefore regard the common division of the 
parties of this time into Federal and Anti-Federal as not exact 
and somewhat misleading. There was no national Anti-Federal 
party,* certainly no national sentiment worthy the name, of Anti- 
Federalism. The opposition to the Constitution which sprang 
up in the State ratifying conventions was not even unreservedly 
Anti-Federal. It was a strange, incalculable sentiment, born of 
fears, and visions, and hypotheses, and constructions, and was as 
much indulged by men like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams 
who had all along been Federalists of the most pronounced type, 
as by those who thought the " secretly deliberating convention " 
could only hatch a scheme of monarchy. Nor was it a final 
sentiment, for many Anti-Federalists voted to ratify. It was not 
a coherent sentiment, for some opposed because the promised 
union would not be strong enough, some because it would be too 
strong, some because the States would suffer, some because a 
State government was at all times sufficient, and so on. Anti- 
Federalists were united in nothing save their opposition. When 
the work of ratification was completed and the government came 
to be started, Anti-Federalism was not heard of In the presence 
of the fact of a Constitution it either agreed to suspend judg- 
ment while the new experiment was being tried or engaged to 
help the trial on. 

* All the members of the Convention signed the Constitution except Edmund 
Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, 
and they were believers in Federalism, i. e., the necessity for a stronger union, but 
Ihey did not think the Constitution was the best means to secure it. On signing 
Franklin said : " I confess there are several parts of this Constitution I do not at 
present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them." And Hamilton, 
on moving that all the members sign the instrument, said : "No man's ideas were 
more remote from the plan than his own were known to be, but is it possible to 
deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on one side and the chance of good to 
be expected from the plan on the other? " In the letter which Washington sent out 
with the Constitution he says : " In all our deliberations we have kept steadily in 
view that which appears the greatest interest of every American — the consolidation 
of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps national 
existence." 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 435 

NEIV GOVERNMENT PARTIES.— So general was the 
refusal of the Anti-Federals to adopt a definite line of action 
after the Constitution had been ratified by the necessary number 
of States (nine), and such was their acquiescence in the popular 
wish to see the new government fairly tried, that all animosities 
ceased, and all open opposition was hushed, while the nation 
bowed before the popularity of Washington, and unanimously 
chose him for its first President. This signal mark of confidence, 
and this supreme triumph of Federalism was to end most happily 
for the country. The passions of the hour would have time to 
cool. Though Washington was a recognized Federalist, he was 
not extreme, and all could depend on his judgment to start the 
machinery on the broadest and safest basis. Extremists and 
radicals of every type could afford to bide their time. And they 
did, harmlessly but not inactively. It was a period for new 
schools of thought, or rather for bringing to bear on the new 
order of things old thoughts in stronger and better formulated 
shape. Federalism, which was affirmative, and Federals who 
were responsible for the new government, naturally inclined to 
such a construction of the Constitution, where points were 
doubtful, as would throw the doubts in favor of the central 
authority. Anti-Federalism, which was negative, and Anti- 
Federals, even though they were supporters of the administra- 
tion, naturally inclined to such a construction, as would throw 
the doubts in favor of the States. Thus the operative, dominant 
Federalism of the day took the form of liberal or open con- 
struction of the Constitution, would interpret it as though it had 
a spirit as well as a letter, saw in a government under it an entity 
with powers and functions to be questioned only by the people 
at large. So the Anti-Federalism of the day took the form of a 
strict or close construction of the Constitution, would interpret 
it as though it were a simple, inelastic code, saw in a govern- 
ment under it nothing more than that aggregate of power and 
function which the sovereign States had parted with, and which 
they were at liberty to question, or if need be recall. While 
these two schools of thought did not immediately branch into 
organized and opposing parties, they furnished the ground- 



436 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

work for nearly all subsequent and legitimate national party 
differences.* A few years of experiment with the new govern- 
ment brought up many questions which deeply engaged the 
respective schools and gradually led to the first organized 
antagonism to the Federal party, which became known as the 
Democratic-Republican party, or better as the Republican 
party. But of this in its place. 

I. 

WASHINGTON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 

April 29, 1789 — March 3, 1793. 

George Washington, Va., President. John Adams, Mass., 
Vice-President. Seat of Government at New York and 
Philadelphia. 

Congresses. Sesssions. 

{I, April 6, 1789-September 29,1789, appointed session. 
2, January 4, 1790-August 12, 1 790. 
3, December 6, 1790-March 3, 1791. 

<^FroNn roNPRFqs / '' October 24, 1791-May 8, 1792. 
bECOND CONGRESS. | ^^ November 5, 1792-March 2, 1793. 

Washington was nominated by a Caucus of the Continental 
Congress. The State Legislatures chose electors for President 
and Vice-President on the first Wednesday of January, 1789.1 
These electors voted on the first Wednesday in February. 

* To the former or liberal school of construction belonged the Federal party, 
which may be called its founder. To the same school belonged the Whig party, 
which asserted that internal improvement at the national expense was within the 
purview of the Constitution, as well as protective duties and a general banking 
system. And so of the modern Republican party which claims for the central 
government all power necessary for its preservation and advancement. To the lat- 
ter, or strict school of construction, belonged the old Republican party and its 
successor, the Democratic party. But all this is in general, for many times the re- 
spective parties have occupied common ground or crossed each other's tracks, only 
to back away again to their old places when motives of expediency ceased to oper- 
ate, and there was no rallying point short of the old differences. 

f The electors were chosen by the State Legislatures up till 1824. Under the 
Constitution as it stood up till 1804, they voted for two persons, the one having the 
highest number of votes to be President, the next highest to be Vice-President. 
Blit they could not both be from the same State. 




il ll l l l l l l llll l lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliillltlllllllllllilllH 

PRESIDENTS FROM 1789 TO 1817. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 437 

* 

ELECTORAL VOTE. 

Basis George 

of Washing- John 

States. 30,000. Votes. Party. ton. Adams. 



New Hampshire ... 3 5 . 5 5 

Massachusetts 8 10 ^ 10 lo 

Rhode Island I 3 g, . . . . Had not yet ratified 

the Constitution. 

Had not yet passed an 
electoral law. 



rt 



Two vacancies. 
(( (( 

Had not yet ratified 
the Constitution. 



Connecticut 5 7 « 7 5 

New York 6 8 'S 

New Jersey 4 6 ^ 6 

Pennsylvania. ...... 8 10 © lo 8 

Delaware I 3 ^ 3 

Maryland 6 8 .2 6 

Virginia 10 12 S lO 

North Carolina 5 7 a, 

o 

South Carolina 5 7 o 7 

Georgia _3_ _5_ -^ 5 

Totals 65 91 .. 69 34* 

Though March 4, 1789, had been fixed as the time for start- 
ing the new government, it was not until April 6 that a quorum 
of Congress was present. Their first business was to count and 
publish the Electoral votes as above. The candidates, being 
duly notified of their election, went to the seat of government. 
Adams arrived first and took his place as presiding officer of the 
Senate. Washington was sworn into office by Chancellor Liv- 
ingstone on April 29, 1789. 

THE C4^/iV^7:t— Washington chose a Cabinet with due 
regard to the sentiment of the day. As to ability it was unques- 
tioned. 

* Of the votes cast for other candidates, and usually recorded as scattering, John 
Jay received 9; R. H. Harrison, 6; John Rutledge, 6; John Hancock, 4; George 
Clinton, 3 ; Samuel Huntington, 2 ; John Milton, 2 ; Benjamin Lincoln, i ; James 
Armstrong, i; Edward Telfair, i. 

f The choice of a Cabinet was not an immediate step, for Congress had not yet 
passed laws organizing the respective Departments. The Stale Department was 
organized by act of Sept. 15, 1 789, and Jefferson's appointment dates from Sept. 
26. The Treasury Department by act of Sept. 2, 1789, and Hamilton's appoint- 
ment dates from Sept. 11. The War Department by act of Aug. 7, 1789, and 
Knox's appointment dates from Sept. 12. The Attorney-General by act of Sept. 
24, 1789, and Randolph's appointment dates from Sept. 26. The Navy Depart- 
ment was not separately organized till April 30, 1798, nor the Post-Office Depart- 
ment till 1829. The latter was conducted till that time by the Treasury Depart- 
ment. 



438 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Va Moderate Anti- Federal, 

Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton, N. Y Federal. 

Secretary of War Henry Knox, Mass " 

Attorney-General Edmund Randolph, Va Anti-Federal. 

Chief Justice Supreme Court. John Jay, N. Y Federal. 

CONGRESS IN EXTRA SESSION.— The House organ- 
ized by electing Frederick A. Muhlenberg, of Pennsylvania. 
Speaker. This election had no political significance. All were 
content to allow the work of organization to move on the plane 
of Federalism ; or rather there had been no comparison of ideas, 
and consequently no effort to organize opposition to Federal 
supremacy. The session lasted for nearly six months, or till 
Sept. 29, 1789. The work related to the preparation of machinery 
and starting the wheels of the new government. The number 
of measures necessary, and their novelty, invited able and pro- 
tracted discussions. In range and character they were not un- 
like those of the period preceding the adoption of the Constitu- 
tution, and they foreshadowed those permanent differences of 
interpretation which might readily, and properly too, afford a 
basis for party existence. 

AMENDMENTS.—So many States had ratified the Constitu- 
tion with the hope of early amendment, and two, Rhode Island 
and North Carolina, held so stubbornly off, that the Congress 
took early steps toward remedying the defects of the instrument. 
Twelve amendments were agreed upon (Sept. 25, 1789) and sub- 
mitted for ratification. Ten of these became a part of the Con- 
stitution, Dec. 15, 1 79 1. They referred to freedom of religion, 
speech, person and property. Though intended to overcome 
the objections of the States and to make more secure the rights 
of the citizens, strange to say they invited bitter opposition from 
the extreme anti-Federal element, which regarded them as de- 
ceptive, and calculated to lure the States and people into false 
expectations of national unity and strength. 

COMMERCE AND TARIER— Bills for the regulation of 
Commerce and the adjustment of a Tariff were fully considered 
and passed. The Tariff act was generally acquiesced in, so far 
as it provided a means of raising revenue by indirect taxation. 
But when it was suggested that such an act could also, an(i 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 439 

should, be made a means of protection, the strict constructionists 
decried it as unconstitutional. However, some of the extreme 
anti-Federals sought to make the measure discriminate against 
England, by favoring the products of other nations. A Tariff 
bill was finally passed July 4, 1789, against strong opposition. 
Though it imposed a very low rate of duty, it was nevertheless 
dignified in the preamble as an " act for the encouragement and 
protection of manufactures." Thus as to one of the objects of a 
Tariff, and in the character of opposition it met with, there were 
foreshadowed, at the very beginning of our government, the 
spirited and strictly party controversies over the same subject a 
generation afterwards, and for that matter, at the present day. 
The matter of adjusting the public debt was left in the hands of 
the Secretary of the Treasury for future action. This extra sesr 
sion adjourned Sept. 29, 1789. During the vacation, Nov. 21, 
1789, North Carolina ratified the Constitution and entered the 
Union. 

FIRST CONGRESS— First Regular Session.— Seat of govr 
ernment at Philadelphia. Met Jan. 4, 1790. Hamilton's Report 
on the adjustment of the public debt furnished the leading subr 
ject for deliberation. This great State paper, which involved 
the national credit at home and abroad, was presented January 
9. The plan proposed was (i) for the national government to 
fund and pay the foreign debt of the Confederacy in full. (2) 
To likewise fund and pay the domestic debt of the Confederacy, 
at par. This debt was then floating about in the shape of nearly 
worthless promises. (3) That the government should assume 
and pay the unpaid debts of the respective States. To the first 
proposition there was no opposition. Against the second the 
extreme anti-Federals rallied, and they were reinforced by such 
as Madison, and many others, of Federal leaning. Their logic 
was that this debt was largely held by speculators, who had 
bought it for a song, and who would realize enormously if it 
were paid at par. . Against this Hamilton urged that the only way 
to permanently raise the broken national credit was to pay all 
honest promises in full, and thus teach the first holders of them 
the folly of parting with a valuable security at a ruinous dis-. 



f> 



440 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

count. This second proposition finally carried. The third 
proposition was looked upon as a stretch of power on the part 
of the government. It was an assumption to do what the States 
only could and should do. The entire anti-Federal sentiment 
was united against it. Still it was carried by a close vote in the 
House (31 to 26). It was however reconsidered a short time 
afterwards, on the arrival of the seven anti-Federal representa- 
tives from North Carolina, and defeated. But it was finally car- 
ried by the vote of two anti-Federals, who agreed to favor it, in 
turn for Federal support of the measure to locate the National 
Capitol, after it had remained ten years in Philadelphia, on the 
Potomac. Though this bargain clouded somewhat the brilliancy 
of Hamilton's success in getting his propositions through, they 
resulted in an instant rebound of the national credit, and the 
establishment of government finance on a substantial working 
basis. The Tariff act of the previous session was amended on 
Aug. 10, 1790, by increasing the previous rates of duty. The 
other measures of this Congress had no party significance. The 
body adjourned Aug. 12, 1790, after a session of over seven 
months. It had witnessed the coming of Rhode Island into the 
Union, by the ratification of the Constitution, May 29, 1790. 

FIRST CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Dec. 6, 1790, 
at Philadelphia. The leading subject was a financial agent for the 
government in the shape of a National Bank. Over this subject 
controversy was heated, and party lines came to be more clearly 
defined. The Federals in general, and all who inclined to a liberal 
or open construction of the Constitution, claimed that if Congress 
could pass laws for revenue and taxes, it could make those laws 
effective through such an agency as a bank. The anti-Federals, and 
all strict constructionists, denied the necessity, and therefore the 
constitutionality, of such an agent. The controversy thus begun 
has continued under one form and another, almost to the present 
day. The personal bitternesses and jealousies it then engendered 
were never healed, but were carried down to the people and soon 
became the basis of permanent party separation. Even the 
Cabinet was divided, and it was known that Jefferson stood ready, 
in that august body, to oppose Hamilton in all his financial plans. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 441 

The bill to charter a National Bank passed, but so conservative 
was Washington that he would not sign it till he had secured 
the written opinions of his Cabinet officers. That of Hamilton, 
in favor of the constitutionality of the act, had greater weight 
than those of Jefferson and Randolph, against it, and the bill 
secured the President's signature. It chartered a National Bank 
for twenty years, /. ^., until i8ii, when the Republican party 
refused to recharter it, only, however, to retrace their steps in 
i8i6, when, under the influence of liberal construction notions, 
and the seemingly imperative needs of the hour, they instituted 
another National Bank which met its downfall in 1836.* The 
financial legislation of the session was supplemented by an Ex- 
cise law, which excited much opposition and became very un- 
popular. The first Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1791. 
Altogether it had been an able body, and had done its work 
with as little jar and as effectively as was possible for men who 
had no exact instructions from constituents and no elaborate 
political chart to steer by. The event of March 4 was the admis- 
sion of Vermont as a State. 

SECOND CONGRESS— First Session.— Met Oct. 24, 
1 79 1, at Philadelphia. The country had passed successfully 
through the excitement of Congressional elections, and the 
position of the Federals had been maintained, though their 
membership in the new body was slightly reduced. This, how- 
ever, did not matter, for there were still many of the Anti- 
Federal, or strict construction, turn who supported the adminis- 
tration. The House organized by the election of Jonathan 
Trumbull of Connecticut, as Speaker. 

THE FIRST REBELLION— Opposition to the excise law 
of the previous Congress, which was fanned by the Anti-Federal 
element, culminated in the " Whiskey Rebellion," among the dis- 
tillers of Western Pennsylvania. The same element also was now 
opposing a National Militia Law. But the latter passed, and in 

* From that time on, all attempts to establish a National Bank failed, till in 1862 
the exigencies of civil war resulted in a strictly national currency under the auspices 
of the Treasury Department, and a system of National Banks whose credit is based 
on that of the government. 



442 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

time for the President to use it, so as to bring the armed dis- 
putants of the national authorities to terms. The victory 
was a moral and bloodless one, achieved through the show of 
an unsuspected vigor and resource on the part of the govern- 
ment. 

THIRD TARIFF ACT— On May 2, 1792, an amended 
tariff act was passed which raised the ad valorem rates of duty 
some 2^ to 5 per cent. It incurred the opposition of the Anti- 
Federals, and called for a repetition of their former arguments. 
An apportionment bill, the first under the new Constitution, was 
also passed. It fixed the ratio of representation at 33,000, under 
the census of 1790, increased the membership of the House to 
105, and the electoral vote to 135, there being fifteen States, 
counting Kentucky, which was admitted June I, 1792. Congress 
adjourned its first session, May 8, 1792. 

POLITICAL CONDITION.— ThQ country was about to 
pass through the crisis of a Presidential election, the first under 
the new Constitution. The government had been started, and 
maintained thus far under a wholesome division of sentiment 
which has been popularly, but not exactly, described as 
Federal and Anti-Federal. It was more exactly that division 
which is better described as Liberal Interpreters and Strict Inter- 
preters of the Constitution ; the former as they were antagonized, 
or as their principles demanded, drifting, perhaps unconsciously, 
toward larger powers and a fuller exercise thereof on the part of 
the national government ; the latter as they antagonized, or as 
their principles demanded, drifting, perhaps unconsciously, 
toward the doctrine which afterwards became known as State 
Sovereignty or State Rights. For the former, and because they 
were acting affirmatively, the term Federal must still apply. For 
the latter there is now no need, except conventionally, of retain- 
ing the term Anti-Federal. Indeed the first ten amendments 
to the Constitution, which were regarded as in the nature of a 
declarative Bill of Rights, so disarmed all opposition to the in- 
strument itself as to render the term Anti-Federal a misnomer. 
Jefferson felt that it was an empty term, and that if the varying, 
and often discordant, sentiments represented by it were ever to 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 443 

be crystalized, some new and more comprehensive name must 
be adopted. The old name was a perpetual reminder of opposi- 
tion to the /act of government. As there was no longer any such 
opposition, but only questions as to how it should be managed 
and with what powers it should be endowed by the creative in- 
strument, the new name must, in no degree, be a reminder of 
the old political status, but must, on the contrary, be both an 
appeal to popular affection and comprehensive enough to 
embrace every form of antagonism to the party which was still to 
be called Federal. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.— The situation gave birth 
to the new party name. Feeling was intense on all sides in favor 
of the French Revolutionists. Jefferson, who was fresh from 
the scenes, taught that it was the direct outcrop of our own 
Revolution, and none chose to gainsay it. But as the Republi- 
cans of France drifted toward wild, ungovernable liberty, and 
evinced more and more a fierce leveling and communistic spirit, 
the Federals checked their ardor and grew cold. In that pro- 
portion the Anti-Federals grew warm. Their admiration took 
even the fantastic shape of dress and manner imitation. Here 
were differences mental and visual. To crown them with the 
term Republican was something, but not quite original. To 
group all feeling of opposition to the Federals under the term 
Democratic-Republican would prove original and striking. 
That, therefore, became the new party name. But the Federals 
heaped contempt on the Democrats, classed them as Jacobins, 
and altogether daunted them in the use of their compound title. 
So the first part was gradually dropped, and the new party 
passed into active politics as the Republican party; which was 
all curious enough, seeing that at this very juncture its tendency 
was rather toward a Democracy than toward a strong central 
Republic. Nor were the Republicans less abusive of the 
Federals. These latter were roundly denounced as fellows with 
a leaning toward monarchy, and full of all aristocratic notions. 
It is very likely that the sentiment among the masses was an 
exaggeration of that existing in the councils of the nation, though 
even there the President spoke grievously of the antagonisms. 



444 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

and complained that the old spirit of compromise had turned 
into one of unjust suspicion and personal antipathy. 

ELECTION OF 1792. — Fortunately for the country party 
spirit was not yet deep enough, or bold enough, to affect the 
Presidency. The one Republican who could have made a re- 
spectable showing in the Presidential race was Jefferson, and 
both he and Washington were from the same State. Therefore, 
both could not be voted for, without the loss of the vote of that 
State. Besides many staunch Republicans had joined with the 
Federals to request Washington to serve a second term, a course 
he had not intended to pursue, till persuaded that the country 
demanded it. This left only the Vice-Presidency open to party 
contention, and for this office the Federals supported John 
Adams, Mass., and the Republicans George Clinton of New 
York. The election took place Nov. 6, 1792, and resulted in 
the success of the Federal ticket. 

SECOND COA'GRESS—Second Session.— Met Nov. 5, 1792, 
at Philadelphia. Revenue questions occupied most of the time 
of the session, and the Federals had comparatively easy suc- 
cesses, the Republicans not being a unit in their opposition. But 
they figured conspicuously for political position, and made a 
direct but unsuccessful attempt to censure Hamilton's manage- 
ment of the Treasury Department. The count of the electoral 
vote* was made in February, 1793, and Washington was de- 
clared elected President, and John Adams Vice-President. They 
were sworn into office on March 4, 1793, Congress having 
adjourned March 2. 

II. 

WASHINGTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1793 — March 3d, 1797. 

George Washington, Va., President. John Adams, Mass., 
Vice-President. Seat of Government at Philadelphia. 

* For full electoral returns see always the succeeding administration. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. ^ 445 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Third Congress. j \^ December 2, i793-June 9, 1794. 

\ 2, November 3,1794-March 3, 1795. 

FoTTRTH CoNPRESS / ^' December 7, 1795-June i, 1796. 
1<0URTH CONGRESS. | ^^ December 6, 1796-March 3,1797. 

ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 

Federal. 

, ^ > Republican, 

States. Basis of * Geo. Wash- J. Adams, Geo. Clinton, 

33,000. Votes. ington, Va. Mass. N. Y. 

New Hampshire. ... 4 6 6 6 

Massachusetts 14 16 16 16 

Rhode Island 2 4 4 4 

Connecticut 7 9 9 9 

New York lo 12 12 .. 12 

New Jersey 5 7 7 7 

Pennsylvania 13 15 15 14-1 

Delaware I 3 3 3 

Maryland 8 lo 8 8 . . Two vacancies. 

Virginia 19 21 21 .. 21 

North Carolina. . . . lo 12 12 . . 12 

South Carolina 687 6 Scattered. One vacancy. 

Georgia 2 4 4 .. 4 

Vermont, 2 4 4 4 

Kentucky 2 4 '4 .. Scattered. 

Totals 105 13s 132 "77 "^ 

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.— VJ2.shmgion, in pursu- 
ance of his conciliatory policy, made no immediate changes in 
his cabinet. He had, however, active and delicate work on hand. 
France had (April, 1793) declared war against Great Britain and 
Holland. The Republicans gave reins to their sympathy for 
their French namesakes, and claimed that the treaty of 1778, 
which bound France and the United States to an alliance offen- 
sive and defensive, was still in existence and ought to be re- 
spected. It looked as if war with Great Britain were certain, 
with the United States as an ally of France. Notwithstanding 
the unpopularity of the act, Washington decided that the treaty 
was null, and issued a decree of neutrality t between the con- 
tending parties. This step brought upon his administration, and 
on himself personally, the bitterest assaults of the Republicans. 
He was denounced as an enemy of Republican France, as a vio- 

*Of the votes indicated as " scattered," four were cast for Thomas Jefferson and 
one for Aaron Burr. 

f This was the beginning of a foreign policy from which there have been few 
departures since. 



446 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

later of sacred faith, as a usurper of the powers of Congress. 
To further complicate and intensify matters, citizen Genet arrived 
as Minister to tke United States, April 8, 1793. Deceived by 
the warmth of his reception at Charleston, S. C, he foolishly 
went about the business of raising money, recruiting men and 
commissioning cruisers for the French cause. . Jefferson ordered 
him to desist, but removing to Philadelphia and encouraged by 
the Republican clubs of that city, which organizations carried 
their sympathy into wild excess, he continued to act as if on 
French soil. The French Consul at Boston rescued a libeled 
vessel from the United States Marshal. An American privateer 
sailed from Phifadelphia under French colors, against the orders 
of the government. Military organizations were being formed in 
Georgia against the Spanish American possessions. Genet was 
so inflated with his Republican support that he privately an- 
nounced his intention of appealing to the people for a general 
uprising in behalf of France.* Timely exposure of this inten- 
tion speedily alienated even his warmest friends, and his meteoric 
career was ended by his recall. 

THIRD CONGRESS—YixsX Session.— Met Dec. 2, 1793, at 
Philadelphia, and organized by electing F. A. Muhlenberg, of 
Pennsylvania, Speaker. He was a Republican, but it was only 
when party lines were closely drawn, which was possible on but 
a very few questions, that a small Republican majority could be 
counted on. The President's action respecting American neu- 
trality and the Genet affair was coldly approved, but Republican 
sentiment took another turn. If it could not directly favor 
France, it could at least antagonize England. It therefore very 
justly called England to account for not carrying out the treaty 
of 1783, by which she was to give up her Lake military posts on 
American soil. The Indian wars of the Northwest were attri- 
buted to British intrigue. So were the Algerine piracies. All 
in all, it looked as if the country were about to be plunged into 
war with England, for the Republican course proved to be very 

* This announcement was made public by Chief Justice Jay and Senator King, 
who published it over their signatures in a New York newspaper. Its truth was 
vehemently denied by the Republicans. 



RULING THROUGH ^PARTIES. 447 

popular. England began to judge the country by it, and to act 
as though the United States were already a secret, and soon to 
become an open, ally of France. She ordered her ships of war 
to stop all vessels laden with French supplies and to turn them 
into British ports (June 8, 1793). She began her system of im- 
pressing American seamen suspected of being Englishmen. She 
aimed a further blow at American commerce by actually seizing 
ships carrying French supplies and instituting trials against them 
in English courts. She justified her holding the Lake forts on 
the ground that our government had refused to pay certain 
debts due British subjects. Thus the Republican sympathy for 
France had brought ruinous commercial retaliation. Jefferson, in 
an official report of December 16, 1793, wisely called a halt by 
proposing an effort at amicable adjustment of the difficulties be- 
fore proceeding to counter retaliation. The Federals, especially 
those of the cabinet, were anxious for the first part of this propo- 
sition, but the Republicans, especially the extreme ones, were 
implacable, and Madison (January 4, 1794) introduced resolu- 
tions imposing prohibitory duties on English goods. This 
measure invited long debate and served to straighten Repub- 
lican lines, but it failed of passage. Jefferson retired from the 
cabinet in December, 1795, and was succeeded by Edmund Ran- 
dolph, of Virginia, as Secretary of State, January 2, 1794. The 
former premier retired to his Virginia plantation, and amid his 
political writings and plans for the further development of the 
new Republican party, of which he was the acknowledged 
founder, he escaped responsibility for the mistakes due to the 
enthusiasm of his political friends in the Congress. 

WASHINGTON ACTS.— In accordance with the peaceful 
policy outlined in Jefferson's report, Washington nominated 
(April 16, 1794) Chief Justice Jay as Envoy Extraordinary to 
England, with a view to a treaty. The Federal Senate confirmed 
the nomination. In order to balk the mission the House Re- 
publicans moved to prohibit trade with England. This the 
Senate rejected, and Jay started on his mission, arriving in Eng- 
land in June, 1794. 

FURTHER PARTY CONTESTS.— The Federals fought all 



448 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

through the session for their policy of neutrality between France 
and England, the Republicans for intervention of some kind or 
in some way, and the ardor of the latter often drew them into 
inconsistencies. Thus while they invited war with England by 
measures to prohibit commercial intercourse with her, they at 
the same time opposed the Federals in their attempts to found 
a navy, the most effective weapon with which to carry on such 
war. And so when the Federals sought to escape the odium of 
Excise taxation by a system of indirect taxes, and a thereby 
increased revenue, the Republicans voted for direct taxes. 
Another unsuccessful attempt was made by the Republicans to 
censure, by resolution, Hamilton's management of the Treasury. 
They likewise bitterly but ineffectually opposed the Federal bill 
designed to approve of Washington's admonitions against " self- 
created political societies,"* and to prevent a recurrence of Genet's 
attempts to engage a people in warlike enterprises without the 
consent of their government. This attitude was the more re- 
markable because the French government had already disavowed 
Genet's conduct, and sent Fanchet as minister in his stead. But 
it was a formative period for the Republicans. Much must be 
excused to their enthusiasm, to their lack of definite policy, to 
the newness, oddness and swiftness of the situations they were 
called upon to confront. Neither party had yet had very profi- 
cient schooling in diplomacy. The Federals had all the advan- 
tage of a purpose. They could hew to a line, however roughly. 
The Republicans had to agitate and deny, work a negative situa- 
tion for all it was worth, and at the disadvantage of youth and 
inexperience. As yet they had invented no distinctive affirma- 
tive American measure on which they could consistently unite, 
or risk their future success. 

XITH AMENDMENT.— CoxAd a citizen of the United States 
sue a State ? The Supreme Court had decided that a State was 
suable like any other corporation, and that too by a citizen of 
another State. This was a terrible blow to the members of the 

* The allusion was to the various secret associations formed for working up an 
American-French sentiment, and popularizing, if not justifying, such conduct as 
Genet had been guilty of. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 449 

Strict construction school. The Republicans therefore proposed 
the XL Amendment, which limited the judicial power of the 
United States, and exempted a State from suit in the Federal 
courts, instituted by a citizen of another State, or by a foreign 
citizen. The wisdom of this amendment was not much mooted 
at the time, but the advantage taken of it by States which have 
felt inclined to repudiate their debts has shaken public faith in 
its justice. It was proposed March 5, 1794, and declared in force 
Jan. 8, 1798, having been ratified by the necessary number of 
States. 

TARIFF ACT — The Fourth. — The Federals succeeded in 
amending the Tariff Act of 1792, by increasing the ad valorem 
rates of duty, June 7, 1794. The imperative need of revenue, 
the quiet and general distribution of taxation in this form, and 
the sure and easy manner of collection, reconciled many of 
the Republicans to it, so long as it was unmixed with the 
affirmative doctrine of protection. Congress adjourned June 9, 
1794. 

THIRD CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Nov. 3, 1794, 
at Philadelphia. The session opened by warm debate on Hamil- 
ton's plan of Internal Taxation. These debates continued at 
intervals throughout the session, and resulted in the passage of 
the measure, the Republicans not being able to keep their opposi- 
tion solid. Hamilton resigned from the Cabinet in January, 1795, 
and was succeeded (Feb. 2) by Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut. 
Congress adjourned sine die March 3, 1795. 

EXCITING INTERVAL.— ^IxmstQv Jay had succeeded in a 
treaty with England by November, 1794. It reached America 
March 7, 1795. The Senate was called to consider it, June 8, 
1795. It was ratified by a two-third majority, and while await- 
ing the President's signature its contents (June 29) were pre- 
maturely divulged by one of the Senators. Its appearance was 
the signal for a Republican attack on the administration, and on 
all concerned in its negotiation and ratification, which for the 
directness and bitterness of its personalism has probably never 
been surpassed. Meetings were called in the cities to denounce 
it, and to present appeals to the President not to sign it. It was 
29 



450 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

denounced as not covering any of the causes of grievance. It 
left England at liberty to impress American seamen, to interfere 
with our commerce, to shut off our West India trade, and. so 
on. The President signed it. This turned denunciation of the 
treaty into abuse of his administration and himself He was 
charged with usurpation, with indifference to American prisoners 
in Algiers, with embezzlement of public funds, with official 
incapacity then and during the Revolution, with hostility to his 
country's interests, and even with treason. Malignity took the 
form of threats to impeach, and even to assassinate him. On 
Republican lips he was no longer " the Father," but " the Step- 
father of his Country." " He would rather be in his grave than 
in the Presidency," was his sad comment on these thoughtless 
and vulgar drives at his private character. The treaty itself 
came to his vindication. England speedily removed her Lake 
forts from American soil. In less than a year American com- 
merce took a rebound. Jay's much denounced treaty passed 
into political history with the approval of its bitterest opponents. 
FOURTH CONGRESS— Y\x^\. Session.— Met December 7, 

1795, at Philadelphia. Senate contained a Federal majority: 
House a Republican; though not united, majority. Jonathan 
Dayton, Federal, of New Jersey, was elected Speaker. The 
President's message was approved by the Senate, by a vote of 
14 to 8. The Republicans of the House refused to agree to a 
resolution which contained an expression of "confidence in the 
President and approval of his course." 

A CONFLICT.— ThQ President sent to Congress, March i, 

1796, his proclamation that the Jay treaty had been duly ratified 
and was law. Mr. Livingstone, of New York, against the ad- 
vice of the more liberal members of his party, moved that the 
President be requested to send to the House a copy of the treaty 
and all the papers connected with it. After an acrimonious de- 
bate the resolution passed by a vote of 57 Republicans to 
35 Federals. Washington refused to comply, saying that 
the House was not a part of the treaty-making power.* This 

* This answer of Washington involved the principle which has ever since been 
accepted as the correct one regarding treaties. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 451 

stirred the animosity of the Republicans still deeper. Word 
was passed to the country that a " British party " existed, and 
that the administration had been corrupted with British gold. 
Indignation meetings were again called. The House resolved 
that it had a right to the papers because it was a judge of the 
necessity of a treaty wherever an expenditure of public money 
was involved. The Federals, under the lead of Fisher Ames, 
of Massachusetts, rallied to the support of a counter resolution, 
declaring that provision should be made for carrying out the 
treaty. This was distracting to the Republicans, and they 
fought it, at first very desperately, through the month of April 
(to April 29th). In the meantime the country was responding, 
but not in a way the Republicans had hoped for. The people 
were tired of the agitation and did not want the treaty set aside. 
A Presidential election was coming on. It might not be prudent 
to push a doubtful question further at such a time. The Repub- 
lican majority weakened, fell into a deliberative mood, and 
finally helped to pass the Ames resolution by a vote of 51 
to 48. 

Questions of revenue occupied the rest of the session. One 
of them related to a further increase of Tariff rates, on which 
political lines were closely drawn, and the Federals, who fa- 
vored the increase, were beaten, Tennessee became a State 
of the Union June i, 1796, and on that day the Congress ad- 
journed. 

FAREWELL ADDRESS.— On September 17, 1796, Wash- 
ington gave to the American people his farewell address. He 
had been solicited by men of both political parties to become 
for the third time a candidate for the Presidency, and had been 
assured of the support of the people. But his determination to 
retire to private life could not be altered. His address, care- 
fully drawn and solemnly worded, was his vindication against 
attack, which was to stand for all time, and his appeal to his 
countrymen to be true to the government, to beware of foreign 
influences, to avoid party strife, and to cultivate religion, educa^ 
tion, and patriotic devotion to their institutions. It was a full 
reflex of the man, conservative, yet firm ; solemn, yet hopeful ; 



452 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

plain, yet elegant; great, yet unselfish.* It was received every- 
where with approbation, and ranks to-day as a political classic, 
well worth study by every young man. 

ELECTION OF 1796. — The mission of Washington had 
been to hold sentiment together, or see that every conspicuous 
shade was represented, till the experimental period of the new 
government had passed. It had now passed, and his retirement 
left the field open to the square contention of parties. By mu- 
tual understanding, rather than by Congressional caucus nomina- 
tion, the candidates of the Federals became John Adams, of 
Massachusetts, and Thomas Pinckney, of Maryland, and those 
of the Republicans Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and Aaron 
Burr,' of New York. 

There was no platform announcement of party principles, but 
the Federals claimed to represent Washington's policy of peace, 
neutrality, finance, progress, safety, and the right as founders of 
the government to place its existence beyond hazard before being 
called upon to part with their high trust. The Republicans 
claimed to be the advocates of economy, enlarged liberty, the 
rights of man, the rights of the States, and they did not hesitate 
to charge the Federals with every real and conceivable sin of 
commission and omission, among them an inclination toward an 
English policy and form of government. Though this latter 
was in manifest forgetfulness of their own well-known favoritism 
for France, the country was reminded of it by a presumptuous 
paper issued by the French Minister, called an "Address to the 
American People," and designed to influence the Presidential 
contest, in which the hint was thrown out that France would 
have to withhold intercourse with the United States if the 
Republicans were unsuccessful. 

* One characteristic of the address is its delicate undertone of vindication and 
complaint. The former was designed and exquisitely incorporated. The latter 
seems foreign to a man of Washington's iron will. But he was withal very sensi- 
tive, and it must have been well-nigh impossible for even one of his high, unbend- 
ing character, and though the paper were studied and stately to the last degree, to 
avoid all shadow of complaint. He had previously spoken of the attacks on him 
as aggravatingly malicious and personal, and made " in terms so exaggerated and 
indecent as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even a 
common pickpocket." 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 453 

The Presidential election was held in November, 1796, the 
electors being chosen by the Legislatures of the several States, 
a "practice which continued till 1824, and in some States till a 
later period. 

FOURTH CONGRBSS— Second Session.— The Congress 
met December 5, 1796. It was a comparatively quiet session, 
and void of party interest. In February the count of the elec- 
toral votes was made, and the result showed a glaring defect in 
the method of choosing the President. Adams received 7 1 votes, 
Jefferson 68, Pinckney 59, and Burr 30. Thus there was a Fed- 
eral President and a Republican Vice-President, with all the con- 
fusion incident to a change of administration in mid-term, in 
case of the death or disability of the former, and all the danger 
to be apprehended from a like change if partisanship or corrup- 
tion should accomplish his impeachment or removal. The ex- 
perience furnished by the next Presidential election brought a 
much needed amendment of the method of voting. An amended 
Tariff act was passed March 3, which made a slight increase in 
the duty on manufactures of cotton. Congress adjourned sine 
die March 3, 1797, and on March 4 Adams an'd Jefferson were 
sworn into office. 

III. 
ADAMS' ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1797 — March 3, 1801. 

John Adams, Mass., President. Thomas Jefferson, Va., Vice- 
President. Seat of Government at Philadelphia. 



Congresses. Sessions. 

:, May 15, 1797-July 10, 1797, extra session. 
Fifth Congress, -j 2, November 13, 1797-July 16, 1798. 
3, December 3, 1798-March 3, 1799. 



13. 

Sixth Congress. / '' g^^^^^^er 2, I799-May 14, 1800. 

(_ 2, November 17, 1800-March 3, 1801. 

ELECTORAL VOTE. 

Federals. Repubricans. 



Basis of J. Adams, Thos. Pinck- Thos. Jeffer- A. Burr, Scat- 
States. 33,000. Votes. Mass. ney, Md. son, Va. N. Y. tering. 

New Hampshire 4 6 6 .. .. .. 6 

Massachusetts 14 16 16 13 .. .. 3 

Rhode Island 2 4 4 .. .. ,. 4 



454 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Electoral Vote — Continued. 



Basis of 
States. 33,ocx}. 

Connecticut 7 

New York 10 

New Jersey 5 

Pennsylvania 13 

Delaware i 

Maryland 8 

Virginia 19 

North Carolina 10 

South Carolina 6 

Georgia 2 

Vermont 2 

Kentucky 2 

Tennessee i 

Totals 106 





Fe 


derals. 


Republ 


cans. 






J. Adams. 


Thos. Pinck- 


Thos. Jeffer- 
son, Va. 


A. Burr, 


Scat-* 


Votes. 


Mass. 


ney, Md. 


N.Y. 


tering. 


9 


9 


4 






s 


12 


12 


12 


. . 






7 


7 


7 






. . 


15 


I 


2 


14 


13 


. . 


3 


3 


3 






, . 


10 


7 


4 


4 


3 


2 


21 




I 


20 


I 


19 


12 




I 


II 


6 


5 


8 




8 


8 






4 






4 




4 


4 




4 








4 






4 


4 




3 




. . 


3 


3 
















I3« 


71 


59 


68 


30 


48* 



THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Pa Contiilued. 

Secretary of Treasury. ..Oliver Wolcott, Conn «* 

Secretary of War James McHenry, Md « 

Secretary of Navy To Department of War till 1798. 

Attorney-General Charles Lee, Va " 

Postmaster- General Joseph Habersham, Ga With Treas.Depart. till 1829. 

Continued. 

THE INAUGURAL.— YvQsidQnt Adams in his inaugural 
broadly affirmed the policy of the Washington administrations, 
and made a calm and studied denial of the oft-repeated charges 
that the Federal party was influenced by English patronage or 
any love for England. It did not serve to mellow the bitterness 
of the Republicans. On the contrary, they seemed to share the 
bad feeling now openly manifested by the French Republic on 
account of Republican defeat in America. 

ARMED NEUTRALITY.— Addims found his administration 
between an upper and nether millstone of excitement. He must 
act and that promptly. Steps were taken toward preserving the 
neutrality established by the previous administrations, peaceably 
if possible, forcibly if necessary. A navy was improvised. 
Monroe, an ardent Republican and Minister to France, was re- 
called, and C. C. Pinckney sent in his stead. The French 

■^ Of those marked as scattering Samuel Adams received 15; Oliver Ellsworth, 
II ; George Clinton, 7 ; John Jay, 5 ; James Iredell, 3; George Washington, 2 ; John 
Henry, 2; S. J.ohnson, 2; and Charles C. Pinckney, I. 



IDLING THROUGH PARTIES. 455 

Directory parted with Monroe, expressing admiration for the 
American people, and contempt for the American government. 
They at the same time ordered Pinckney to quit their country, 
and declared they would receive no more American ministers 
till their grievances, prominent among which was the Jay treaty, 
were redressed. 

FIFTH CONGRESS— Ey±r2i Session.— On hearing of the 
French attitude, the President called the Fifth Congress into 
Extra Session, May 15, 1797. It organized by electing Jonathan 
Dayton, of New Jersey, Speaker. He was a Federal, and that 
party had a majority in both branches. The President developed 
his foreign policy in an address. It meant neutrality, even at the 
expense of war with offenders. But three envoys were proposed, 
to go to France and exhaust all reasonable efforts for peace. 
These were approved by both Houses, and they departed on their 
mission. Congress adjourned July 10, 1797. 

AN EMPTY MISSION— SNhilQ the envoys were absent the 
respective parties kept their feelings ablaze by the old charges 
of English and French influence and favoritism. " The country 
contained few Americans, but very many English and French," 
was remarked of the situation by a foreign observer. The 
envoys, after a fruitless effort at peace, submission to conduct 
they regarded as humiliating, and refusal on their part to listen 
to a request for a loan to the French Republic as a preliminary 
to negotiations, came back to report their failure, and meet the 
ridicule of the Republicans. 

A CONDITION OF WAR.— WhilQ the envoys— the X. Y. 
Z. mission* as they were called — had been treated hardly by 
the French, and no better by their opponents at home, the 
country was forced to confront the solemn fact that France was 
making not only secret attack upon its commerce, under cover 
of law, but open attack as well, which nothing but a state of war 
would excuse. Any vessel carrying American shipping papers 
was deemed fit subject for seizure and confiscation. 

* Agents of the French Directory over the initials X. Y. Z. had intimated to the 
envoys the possibility of their success, provided they could offer some substantial 
money inducement. 



4 
456 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

FIFTH CONGRFSS— First Regular Session.— Met at Phila- 
delphia, Nov. 13, 1797. The juncture was critical. The Re- 
publicans were so pronouncedly in favor of France, and 
were so strong, that it looked as if a policy of "Armed 
Neutrality " would at any moment go to the wall. Early in 
1798 they were able, in the House, to vote down a proposition to 
arm American vessels. But the Senate, April 8, made public 
the attempted negotiations of the envoys to France. They sur- 
prised both parties. The Federals became furious at the insult 
heaped on their accredited agents and at the double-dealing, not 
to say corrupt overtures, of the French Directory. The Re- 
publicans stood aghast at the revelation. They could not brook 
conduct so flagrant, much as their sympathies had been enlisted 
in behalf of their struggling brethren of France. The more 
patriotic and shrewder-minded turned in with the Federals. A 
respectable minority found silence golden. American self- 
respect and American danger impelled to a common political 
sentiment, and that sentiment found popular outburst in the cry 
of " millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." 

AL/FN AND SEDITION LAWS.— Congress co-operated 
with the administration in placing the government on a war 
footing. The navy was strengthened, and orders were issued to 
seize French vessels operating against American commerce. 
Letters of marque and reprisal were authorized. Treaties with 
France were declared abrogated. A temporary army was 
ordered, to be commanded by Washington as Lieutenant- 
General. Thus far all was popular and unquestioned. But 
France was to be fought not only on the ocean and on the field. 
It was felt that she was stronger in the country through her 
secret emissaries than in any other spot. Hence, the Alien Law, 
passed June 25, 1798, giving the President power to order aliens, 
whom, he should adjudge dangerous, out of the country, and 
providing for the fine and imprisonment of those who refused to 
go. This was followed by the Sedition Law of July 14, to re- 
main in force till March 3, 1801. It imposed fine and imprison- 
ment on conspirators to resist government measures, and on 
libellers and scandalizers of the government. Congress or Presi- 
dent. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 457 

NATURALIZATION LAW.— ^This law required an alien to 
reside fourteen years in the United States before he could be 
naturalized. The Federals favored it on general principles of 
safety to the country, and because they felt that they could not 
hope for accessions to their party from any foreign element then 
likely to become immigrant. The Republicans fought for a five- 
year probation, on the ground that America was properly an 
asylum for all nations, that a longer term would cause too many 
of the inhabitants to owe no allegiance, and because they 
knew, with the Federals, that immigrants would naturally 
augment their political ranks. The Congress adjourned July 
i6, 1798. 

STORMY INTER VAL.— War action had been set into feverish 
reaction by the Alien and Sedition Laws, which the Republicans 
regarded as a violent stretch of constitutional authority, and as 
arming the government with altogether too much power, even 
for war times. Not choosing to distinguish between themselves 
and those at whom the laws were aimed, they claimed that they 
were a menace to all Republicans, that they abridged liberty of 
speech and the press, that they were unconstitutional out and 
out. They had the best of the argument before the country, 
for the Federals could only justify them by the necessities of the 
hour. Constitutional construction was then in its infancy, and 
any new step was likely to excite jealousy and alarm. As a 
matter of policy, they were a step beyond what the Federals need 
have taken. They had, without them, a patriotic and permanent 
standpoint, and they had for it a strong Republican support, 
especially among the people, caused by the action of the French 
Directory. Their execution gave greater offence than their 
enactment. Having gone too far to retract, the administration 
insisted on carrying them out, even though France had come 
forward to deny any knowledge of bribery and corruption on the 
part of her agents, and had expressed a desire for peace. Thus 
they became a torment to the Federals, present and recurring. 
Aware of their keenness as a political weapon the Republicans 
drove it home on every occasion. 

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS,— Though the enforce- 



458 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ment of the Alien and Sedition Laws was a source of weakness 
to the Federals, the Republicans soon felt they could not hope 
by their opposition to them to carry the fall (1798) Congressional 
elections. They therefore turned their attention to the State 
Legislatures, feeling that there their opposition could be made 
effective in the next Presidential election. Effort took the shape 
of denunciatory resolutions (really proclamations) passed by the 
Legislatures of two States. They are noteworthy as being the 
first formal declaration of strict construction views of the day, 
and are worthy of study as containing the doctrine on which all 
subsequent strict constructionists have relied for their advocacy 
of State sovereignty, nullification and secession. 

RESOLUTIONS OF 1798.— The Kentucky resolutions were 
drawn by Jefferson, the Virginia resolutions by Madison. Both 
were adopted by the respective State Legislatures. The Vir- 
ginia resolutions declared the Constitution to be a compact made 
by the States and to form which the States had agreed to sur- 
render only a part of their own powers. The Federal govern- 
ment could not exceed the authority delegated to it by the 
States. If it did the States had a right to stop it, and to main- 
tain the powers they had reserved to them.selves. The Alien 
and Sedition Laws were usurpations of powers not granted to 
the Federal government, for the Constitution forbade any abridg- 
ment of liberty of speech or the press. The State of Virginia 
declared them unconstitutional, and appealed to the other States 
to join her. The governor was ordered to lay the resolutions 
before the other State Legislatures. They were repeated in 
1799. 

The Kentucky resolutions repeated those of Virginia in sub- 
stance, and added that the Federal compact was as if a contract 
between two parties, the States being one, and the Federal gov- 
ernment the other; and that each party was to be the judge of 
any breach of the agreement, as well as of the manner of redress. 
These were also repeated in 1799, but with the wonderfully bold 
amendment, designed to draw the line between party opposition 
and criminal or treasonable opposition to the government, that 
the rightful remedy on the part of a State was " nullification of 



. RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 459 

all unauthorized acts (by the Federal government) done under 
color of that instrument (the Constitution)." It ought to be 
observed, in justice to Jefferson, ever diplomatic, if very ardent 
in his Republicanism, and who, at this time a prospective candi- 
date for the Presidency, would not willingly have jeopardized 
his chances, however anxious he might have been to force home 
on the Federals their mistake in passing the Alien and Sedition 
Laws, that the final position taken in the Kentucky resolutions 
was far more ultra than his own, and that it was not regarded as 
good strict construction doctrine, till other causes, times and 
men,* conspired to give it sanction and render it operative. 

FIFTH CONGRFSS—Second Session.— Met at Philadelphia, 
Dec. 3, 1798. Irregular ocean warfare was still going on be- 
tween American and French privateers. There was scarcely 
any opposition to an increase of the navy, but the Republicans 
antagonized every measure for an increase of the army, alleging 
that none was needed and that the matter was only an ingenious 
Federal scheme, gotten up for the sake of providing places for 
their party leaders. The President, who had hitherto been firm, 
but who began to feel that his firmness was really a source of 
weakness so far as his aspirations to succeed himself in office 
were concerned, departed from his determination not to negotiate 
further with France, and, without consulting his Cabinet, sent 
three other envoys to treat for peace. This action led to a divi- 
sion in the Cabinet, and the protesting members met with the 
approval of the Federal party at large. The effort of the Presi- 
dent to recover lost ground with the Republicans lost him more 
ground within his own party. Congress adjourned sine die 
March 3, 1799. 

SIXTH CONGRESS— Y\x^\. Session.— Met at Philadelphia, 
Dec. 2, 1799. Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts was chosen 
Speaker. He was a Federal, and the Federals had a good work- 
ing majority in both Houses. They represented the war feeling 
of the country, and had been chosen before sentiment began to 
revolt against the enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Laws, 
at least before such revolting sentiment could be made effective 

* Notably 1832, Calhoun's time; and i860, the era of open secession. 



460 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in the Congressional districts. It was the policy of the Repub- 
licans to avoid all party contests. Drawing their inspiration 
from Jefferson, they kept quiet, conscious that the ferment of 
opposition already active in the body politic would work favor- 
ably to them, and by no means displeased witnesses of the 
estrangement, gradually growing wider, between the President, 
and such prominent Federal leaders as Hamilton and others,. 
The Federals in Congressional caucus nominated as their candi- 
dates for the Presidency John Adams, of Mass., and C. C. 
Pinckney, of S. C. The Republicans, in a Congressional Con- 
vention* at Philadelphia, nominated Thomas Jefferson, Va., and 
Aaron Burr, N. Y. Congress adjourned May 14, iSoo.f 

ELECTION OF 1800.— Though the Legislatures of the 
States did not meet to choose Presidential electors till Novem- 
ber, the fact that those bodies chose them made the Presidential 
result turn on their political complexion. The Presidential elec- 
tion was therefore in reality scattered over a great part of the 
year previous to November. Adams was unfortunate in not 
having the undivided support of his party. The State election 

* This term " Congressional Convention " implies what we would now under- 
stand to be a Congressional Caucus. It was full, formal and called, and therein 
differed from those informal caucuses of members which had bespoke former nom- 
inations. The first political platform, and the only one till the Clintonian address 
or platform of 1812, was that of this Republican Congressional Convention of 1800 
which nominated Jefferson. It announced (i) " Preservation of the Constitution in 
the sense in which it was adopted by the States; " (2) " Opposition to monarchizing 
its features ; " (3) " Preservation to the States of the powers not yielded to the 
Union, and to the Legislature of the Union its constitutional share in division of 
powers;" (4) "A rigorously frugal administration of the government ; " (5) "Re- 
liance for internal defence solely on the militia, until actual invasion, and for such 
naval force only as may be sufficient to protect our coasts and harbors ; " (6) " Free 
commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplo- 
matic establishment;" (7) "No linking ourselves with the quarrels of Europe; " 
(8) "Freedom of religion;" (9) "Freedom of speech and the press;" (10) 
" Liberal naturalization laws; " (11) " Encouragement of science and art." 

•j- On May 13, 1800, the sixth amended Tariff act was passed, raising the duty on 
sugar one-half cent per pound, and on silk 2^ per cent. The rates on the leading 
articles now ranged as follows : Sugar, 2j^ cents per pound ; coffee, 5 cents per 
pound; tea, 18 cents per pound; salt, 20 cents per bushel; pig iron, 15 per cent.; 
bar iron, 15 per cent.; glass, 20 per cent.; cotton goods, 15 per cent.; woollens, 
I2_J^ to 15 per cent.; silk, 2JS^ per cent. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 4gl 

in New York, April 28, resulted in a Republican Legislature. 
This result, due more to Hamilton's estrangement than to either 
Jefferson's or Burr's popularity, was a bad omen for the Federals. 
Adams wa*s so piqued that he dismissed Hamilton's friends from 
the cabinet, and they went forth branded as British factionists. 
The Republicans had been making their ground solid in the 
States by such means as the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions 
for two years. But despite their seeming advantage of harmony 
and popular hue and cry, the returns in November were doubt- 
ful till South Carolina was heard from. Her vote settled the 
election in favor of the Republicans. 

SIXTH CONGRESS—Stcond Session.— Met at Washing- 
ton, Nov. 17, 1800.* This short session had a problem on hand 
which loomed up in the Fourth Congress, and which in certain 
shapes has returned periodically to plague Congress and the 
people. The electors had voted under the then existing consti- 
tutional provision, each for two candidates not of the same 
State. In February, 180 1, when Congress came to count the 
returns, it was found that Jefferson and Burr each had 73 votes, 
Adams 65 and Pinckney 64. There was therefore no choice, for 
no one candidate had the highest vote. 

CONTESTED ELECTION.-— The election passed to the 
House, where a protracted struggle resulted, and one full of bit- 
terness and danger. The Federal element had to choose between 
two Republicans, one of whom, Jefferson, the Republicans were 
bent on making the President, the other. Burr, the Vice-Presi- 
dent. Some of the Federals preferred to reverse this, not only 
to balk the Republican plan, but because they regarded Jefferson 
as a more formidable opponent than Burr. Burr himself fell, of 
course, to this idea, and fostered it by all the arts of which he 
was the well-known master. Balloting began Feb. 11, and, after 
running for several days, the Federals proposed to confess their 
inability to elect by vote of the States. Against this the Repub- 
licans threatened armed resistance. After other days were con- 

* The Capitol building was ready in June, 1800, and the ten years during which 
the seat of government was to remain at Philadelphia having expired, it was form- 
ally removed to Washington at this session of Congress. 



462 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sumed in idle balloting, the Federals were charged with a wish 
to put off the election till after the 4th of March and thus to 
make John Jay, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the tempo- 
rary President. The result proved that this charge had no 
foundation. Burr finally lost caste in his attempts to dicker with 
the Federals, and Jefferson won on the 36th ballot, Feb. 17, by 
securing ten States, leaving four for Burr and two blank. This 
contention so clearly proved the defects and dangers of the plan 
of electoral voting that the Twelfth Amendment was proposed 
to the Constitution, Dec. 12, 1803, and declared in force Sept. 
25, 1804. Congress adjourned sine rt'z'^, March 3,1801. Jeffer- 
son was sworn in as President and Burr as Vice-President, 
March 4. 

IV. 

JEFFERSON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1801 — March 3, 1805. 
Thomas Jefferson, Va., President. Aaron Burr, N. Y., Vice- 
President. Seat of Government at Washington. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Seventh Congress / ^' December 7, i8oi-May 3, 1802. 
bEVENTH LONGRESS. j ^^ December 6, 1802-March 3, 1803. 

FicHTH Congress / ^' ^^^^^^^^ '7, 1803-March 27, 1804. 
h^lGHTH CONGRESS. | ^^ November 5, 1804-March 3, 1805. 

ELECTORAL VOTE. 

Republicans. Federals. 

Basis 01 Thos. Teffer- A. Burr, J. Adams, C. C. Pinck* 

States. 33.000. Votes. son, Va. N. Y. Mass. ney, S. C. 

Connecticut 7 9 .. •• 9 9 

Delaware I 3 .. .. 3 3 

Georgia 2 4 4 4 

Kentucky 2 4 4 4 .. 

Maryland 8 lo 5 5 5 5 

Massachusetts 14 16 ,. .. 16 16 

New Hampshire. ,. . 4 6 .. .. 6 6 

New Jersey 5 7 .. .. 7 7 

New York 10 12 12 12 

North Carolina 10 12 8 84 4 

Pennsylvania 13 15 ,6 8 7 7 

Rhode Island 2 4 .. Sc* 4 3 

South Carolina 6 8 8 8 .... 

Tennessee...,. i 3 5 3 .. 

Vermont 2 4 .. .. 4 4 

Virginia 19 21 21 21 .. ^_. 

Totals 106 138 73 73 65 64! 

* This one vote was thrown for John Jay. 

f No choice. See contested election on p. 461. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 463 

CABINET. 

Secretary of State James Madison, Va. 

Secretary of Treasury.. .Samuel Dexter, Maes Continued. 

Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, Mass. 

Secretary of Navy Benjamin Stoddard, Md. . . .Continued. 

Attorney-General Levi Lincoln, Mass, 

Postmaster- General Joseph Habersham, Ga Continued. 

POLITICAL REVOLUTION.— T\\^ Republican sweep was 
clean, up to the door of the Judiciary. Adams' defeat was keenly 
felt, though not unexpected. He had many admirers who remem- 
bered with pride his eloquence in behalf of Independence, and 
his bold stand in favor of Federalism. But the loss of a Presi- 
dent was as nothing compared with the permanent break in the 
Federal lines. The breaches were too wide for healing. The 
prestige it had acquired in placing the government on a firm 
basis, in anxious controversy for such power as would make it 
respected at home and abroad, in spirited contention for a policy 
of neutrality, and in timely, though not very masterly, effort to 
restrain the French Republican influence, had been badly clouded 
by some of its later efforts to hold political place, or at least pre- 
vent certain of its opponents from holding the same. Its internal 
weaknesses were now in sad contrast with that former boldness 
which successfully dared the most intricate financial problems, 
provided an ample revenue, and established an enduring national 
credit. 

NEW POWER.— ^Jefferson's inaugural address laid down the 
policy of the Republican party. After attempting to remove 
asperities and smooth differences, he announced the intention 
to continue the payment of the public debt, reduce the army and 
navy, lower taxes, restrict the power of Federal government to 
the lowest limit permitted by the Constitution, and preserve the 
State governments in all their rights. While the message had 
the effect of abating party spirit somewhat, the old outcrops of 
enmity were still frequent. Federals were still " Black Cockade 
Federals." 'Republicans were still " Democrats and Jacobins." 
The wealth, intellect and culture of the country, largely of Fed- 
eral type, naturally felt apprehensive of a situation now com- 
manded by those it had learned to look upon with distrust and 



464 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

to associate with what was foreign and revolutionary in spirit. 
Perliaps they saw in Jefferson himself all they feared from his 
party, when they spoke of him as " an atheist in religion and a 
fanatic in politics." 

REMOVALS FROM OFFICE.— Tht President proceeded 
immediately to undo some of the centralizing measures of the 
preceding administration by pardoning those imprisoned under 
the Alien and Sedition Laws. Then he turned his attention to 
his party friends anxious for office. His removal of Elizur 
Goodrich, Federal, from the Collectorship of New Haven, and 
the appointment of Samuel Bishop, Republican, in his stead, was 
looked upon as a proscriptive innovation, and brought a Federal 
storm about his ears. Washington had made his appointments 
without reference to political opinions. Adams had made few 
removals and none for political reasons. Why should the old 
rule be broken? And especially why should it be broken in 
this instance when Goodrich was competent and Bishop was 78 
years old and incompetent ? To all which Jefferson made the 
memorable reply whose spirit was, in Jackson's time, incorpo- 
rated inta the aphorism, "To the victor belongfe the spoils." 
With rare sagacity, he, however, drew a fine line of distinction 
between removals for retaining opinions and removals for using 
influence. The former he would not make, the latter he would 
make. And again he would rebuke President Adams, by re- 
moving all his appointees after the result of the Presidential 
election became known.* All of this is interesting as the rather 
cautious beginning of that policy of removal from office, and 
appointment thereto, which grew by slow degrees until Jackson 

* Jefferson said that it was not " political intolerance to claim a proportionate share 
in the direction of public affairs. If a due participation of office is a matter of right, 
how are vacancies to be obtained ? Those by death are few, by resignation none." 
He would base his causes for removal as " much as possible on delinquency, on 
oppression, on intolerance, on ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies." After 
thus getting a fair quota of the offices for his party, and thus correcting what he 
charged as erroneous procedure on the part of his predecessor, he said, " that d«ne, 
I will return with joy to that state of things when the only questions concerning a 
candidate shall be : Is he honest ? Is he capable ? Is he faithful to the Constitu- 
tion?" 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 465 

claimed the policy to be an indisputable right, and which has been 
exercised since by all political parties as .such, until questioned 
by the civil service reform spirit of the present day. 

SEVENTH CONGRESS— Yivst Session.— Met Dec. 7, 1801. 
Organized by electing Nathaniel Macon, Republican, of North 
Carolina, Speaker, there being a small Republican majority in 
both branches. Instead of delivering his message in person to 
the Congress as Washington and Adams had done, Jefferson 
presented it in writing and thus established a custom which has 
ever since been maintained, for convenience sake as well as for 
its accordance with republican simplicity. The Congress went 
manfully to work to modify previous Federal legislation. The 
limit for naturalization was fixed at five years, with privilege of 
declaration of intention after a residence of three years. The act 
of 1798 required a residence of fourteen years. A sinking fund 
was established. The army, navy and taxes were reduced. 
Perhaps the most direct blow at the Federals was the repeal of 
the Judiciary law. The law of the previous session had estab- 
lished twenty-four new Circuit Courts, the officers for which 
Adams had appointed the last thing before retiring. The Re- 
publicans said this was an abuse of his power, in that the com- 
missions had been made out and signed after the results of the 
Presidential election had become known. They called them 
"midnight judges," and though the Federals declared that there 
was judicial work for all of them, and further that Adams had 
not exceeded his authority in granting their commissions, the 
Republicans found a way to overcome, for the time being, their 
strict construction notions and repeal the bill. This drove the 
Federals from their last hold on the government, and they never 
recovered their lost ground. Ohio entered the Union Nov. 29, 
1802. Congress adjourned May 3, 1802. 

LOUISIANA PURCHASE.— RepubUcsin zeal for France and 
the French Republican cause received a blow early in 1802 when 
it was announced that Spain had secretly ceded the Louisiana 
Territory to France. Our government had been making war 
preparations against Spain in order to settle the right to free 
navigation of the Mississippi, and to equal privileges about the 
30 



466 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Gulf entrance. By the cession to France, the entire programme 
changed. The government was confronted with a new and more 
formidable owner of this vast country of Louisiana,* and proba- 
bly with a new set of complications. Minister Livingston was 
instructed to remonstrate with the French Emperor and to say 
that France's possession of this territory would drive the Ameri- 
can Republic to enter into an alliance with England. James 
Monroe was sent to Livingston's aid, with instructions to buy 
Florida and the Island of Orleans, which Jefferson mistakingly 
supposed had been embraced in the Spanish cession to France. 
Monroe found France in need of money for contemplated war 
on England and not averse to selling all of Louisiana. A bar- 
gain was at once struck for ;^ 1 5 ,000,000, and though Monroe 
had exceeded his instructions and no authority existed anywhere 
for the transaction, Jefferson agreed to the contract, trusting to 
the Congress and the people to stand by him. In this he was 
not disappointed. The treaty of purchase was ratified by the 
Senate, Oct. 20, 1803. 

SEVENTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 6, 
1802. The respective parties were so watchful of each other and 
so resolute that each failed to accomplish any significant political 
legislation. The action of Spain was censured by the Republi- 
cans. Attempts to amend the Constitutional mode of electing a 
President, to abolish the mint, and to fasten a charge of mis- 
management on the Treasury Department, failed. Congress 
adjourned si7te die, March 3, 1803. 

EIGHTH CONGRESS — First Session. — This Congress was 
called together Oct. 17, 1803, in order that the treaty for the 
purchase of Louisiana might be disposed of The Republican 
majority had been increased, the Federals having lost some of 
their best leaders. Nathaniel Macon was again chosen Speaker. 
The debates on the ratification of the treaty were similar to those 
over the Jay treaty of 1/^95, but parties were turned right round, 
the Republicans using the old Federal, and the Federals the old 
Anti-Federal logic. As observed above, the treaty was ratified 
by the Senate Oct. 20, 1803, and the House made the appropria- 

* For fuller account of this purchase, see ante, page 92. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 467 

tion to carry it into efTect.* The Twelfth Amendment to the 
Constitution changing the mode of Presidential election was 
passed Dec. 12, 1803, and ratified by the States by Sept, 25, 
1804, The first articles of impeachment under the new govern- 
ment were voted by the House against Judge Pickering of the 
United States District Court of New Hampshire, for occasional 
drunkenness. The articles were sustained and the judge dis- 
missed. Other articles were voted against Judge Chase, of Md., 
and Judge Peters, of Pa., for arbitrary conduct in trying cases 
under the Alien and Sedition Laws. The Federals took alarm 
at these steps and boldly charged the Republicans with a design 
to make places for their party judges, and to impair if not 
destroy the judiciary. An amended tariff bill was passed 
March 26, which, if anything, increased the average rate of 
duties then existing. Congress adjourned March 27, 1804. 

ELECTION OF 1804. — Burr had never secured Jefferson's 
confidence after the suspicion that he had tried to barter with the 
Federals for his defeat during the previously disputed Presi- 
dential election. Besides he had then come too near the Presi- 
dency to suit Jefferson's idea of his own success. He was there- 
fore sacrificed in the Congressional caucus, and Jefferson and 
George Clinton of New York became the Republican nominees 
for President. The nominees of the Federals were C. C. Pinck- 
ney, S. C, and Rufus King, N. Y. The Federals were vanquished 
in every State except Connecticut, Delaware and part of Mary- 
land. 

EIGHTH CONGRESSSecond Session.— Met Nov. 5, 
1804. The session was not complimentary to the Republican 
majority. The impeachment trial of Judge Chase came on 
under the articles previously drawn in the House. It took a 
decided partisan turn and awakened the bitterest sentiment. 
Burr, who was under a cloud for having killed Hamilton, and 
who felt keenly the disappointment of defeat at the hands of 
his Republican friends, did much, as presiding officer at the 

* Senate vote for ratification was 24 to 7 ; and House vote for the appropriation 
was 90 to 25, so that the purchase, notwithstanding its irregularity, was abundantly 
confirmed. 



468 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



trial, by his refusal to hearken to the demands of his party, to 
re-establish his lost reputation. This angered the Republicans 
all the more, and when their determination to convict was met 
by a square verdict of acquittal on all the charges, they proposed 
several Constitutional amendments (none of which carried), 
making impeachment, conviction and removal from office easier. 
The electoral votes were counted in February. Jefferson and 
Clinton had 162, and Pinckney and King, 14. The Eighth 
Congress adjourned svie die, March 3, 1804. The success- 
ful Presidential candidates were sworn into office March 4, 
1804. 

V. 

JEFFERSON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1805 — March 3, 1809. 

Thomas Jefferson, Va., President. George Clinton, N. Y., 

Vice-President. 



Congresses. 
Ninth Congress. 

Tenth Congress. 



Sessions. 



fi.De 

\ 2, December i, 1806-March 3, 1807. 

f I, October 26, iSoy-Aprjl 25, 1808. 
\ 2, November 7, 1808-March 3, 1809. 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 
States. 33,000. 

Connecticut 7 

Delaware i 

Georgia 4 

Kentucky 6 

Maryland 9 

Massachusetts 17 

New Hampshire.. .. 5 

New Jersey 6 

New York 17 

North Carolina. ... 12 
Ohio I 



Republicans. 



Federals. 



Votes. 


Thos. Jeffer- 
son, Va. 


G 

ton 


Clin- 

N.Y. 


C.C.P 
ney, S. 


nck- 
C. 


R. King, 
N.Y. 


9 










9 




9 


3 
6 


6 




"e 




3 




3 


8 


8 




8 










II 


9 




9 




2 




2 


19 


19 




19 










7 
8 


7 
8 




7 

8 










19 


19 




19 










14 


14 




14 








.. 


3 


3 




3 




• • 







* While the nominations did not distinguish between President and Vice-Presi- 
dent, the candidates were voted for as if they had been so distinguished, the Con- 
stitutional amendment (the twelfth) having been ratified in September in time for 
the vote to be cast under its provisions. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 460 

Republicans. Federals. 





Basis of 




Thos. Jeffer- 


G. Clin- 


C C. Pinck- 


R. King, 


States. 


33,000. 


Votes. 


son, Va. 


ton, N.Y. 


ney, S. C. 


N.Y. 


Pennsylvania ... . 


... 18 


20 


20 


20 


. . 




Rhode Island.. . 


... 2 


4 


4 


4 






South Carolina.. 


... 8 


10 


10 


10 






Tennessee 


••• 3 


5 


5 


5 


. . 




Vermont 


... 4 


6 


6 


6 






Virginia 


...22 


24 


24 


24 






Totals 


.. 142 


176 


162 


162 


14 


H 



THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State James Madison, Va Continued. 

Secretary of Treasury. .. .Albert Gallatin, Pa •' 

Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, Mass. ... " 

Secretary of Navy Jacob Crowninshield, Mass. 

Aitorney-General Robert Smiih, Md. 

Postmaster-General Gideon Granger, Conn. 

POLITICAL SITUATION.— ThQ Congressional elections 
had been nearly as disastrous to the Federals as the Presidential 
election. They were strong only in New England, and even 
there Vermont had turned Republican. Federalism was clearly 
moribund. The Republicans had the affirmative. The times 
were prolific of new situations, which could be turned to popular 
account. Jefferson understood the art of keeping his party on a 
happy vantage ground better than any statesman in it, and as he 
had its entire confidence, so far as the masses were concerned, 
he exercised a control which was quite autocratic. 

NINTH CONGRESS— V'lYst Session.— Met Dec. 2, 1805. 
Organized by re-electing Nathaniel Macon Speaker. Both 
Houses strongly Republican. A notable event was the 
estrangement of John Randolph, of Virginia, from the President. 
His ambition to go as Minister to England had not been grati- 
fied, and he had failed also in his aspirations to be the leader of 
the administration on the floor of Congress. He therefore with 
a small following threw his strength to the Federals, and thus 
augmented they became a brilliant, determined and useful mi- 
nority. The Spanish Mississippi situation was still delicate. It 
was decided that the best way to settle it was to buy out the re- 
maining interest of Spain in our soil. The President was author- 
ized to make the purchase, but it was not effected till 1 8 19. 
Though both England and France were violating the rights of 



470 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

neutrals, the President would not sanction the building of an 
American navy, but compromised on a system of gunboats, 
which was much ridiculed by his .opponents. Republican par- 
tiality for France was shown by the passage of a measure pro- 
hibiting the importation of English goods after Nov. 15^ 
1806. This was designed to be retaliatory of England's violation 
of the rights of neutrals. As France had been, and was still, 
equally guilty, the blow might very justly have been aimed at 
both. Not yet tired of efforts to ^Republicanize the Judiciary, 
another attempt was made to clear out the old Federal incum- 
bents, but it failed. A strained situation for the Republicans 
grew out of the proposition to build a National Road from the 
Potomac to the Ohio. Contrary to all their previous views of a 
rigid construction of the Constitution, and in vivid contrast with 
the notions of their school which prevailed for fifty years after- 
wards respecting internal improvement, they enacted to lay out 
and build such road. An adjournment took place April 21, 
1806. 

NINTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. i, 1806. 
During the vacation Burr's enterprise of a Southwest Empire 
became public, and the President had ordered his arrest. Infor- 
mation of the scheme was laid before Congress, and the Senate 
enacted to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for three months, 
but the House did not concur. Financial management had been 
such as to produce an excess of receipts over expenditures. 
This excellent condition the President proposed to turn to the 
account of the country by devoting the surplus to education and 
national road and canal making. He was however too far in 
advance, or outside, of his party in this matter to be able to per- 
suade it to any such general undertaking. A revulsion of sen- 
timent had set in on the discriminating act against England, 
passed at the previous session, and the President was given 
power to suspend the operation of the law till December, 1807. 
Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1807. 

BURR BUBBLE.— \n the early part of the year 1807 the 
Burr bubble burst, and he returned, under arrest, to Virginia, the 
scene of his plots, for trial. What he designed to accomplish 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 47I 

by his expedition down the Mississippi has never been accurately 
known. His enemies regarded his scheme as treasonable, having 
for its object the estabhshment of an empire in the Southwest so 
as to control the commerce of the Mississippi. His friends — 
rather his excusers, for friends were hardly possible — gave him 
the credit of a far-sighted enterprise to expel all foreign influence 
from the region of the Gulf, provide an inviting field for immi- 
gration, and thus establish Federal sovereignty in a distant and 
dangerous part of the public domain. However it may all be, 
his trial was now (May, 1807) on at Richmond, before Chief 
Justice Marshall. It was far more political than judicial. The 
Federals, who had denounced the President's order for arrest as 
a usurpation of authority, now heaped personal invective on him 
for his anxious letters to the District Attorney and his open at- 
tempts to influence the trial. Nothing, however, served to deter 
Jefferson. He had no love for Burr, and, further, he felt that his 
conviction was to be his own vindication for a procedure which 
was so bitterly denounced as arbitrary and without precedent. 
The result was Burr's acquittal for want of jurisdiction. The 
defeat of the administration was humiliating in proportion to its 
anxiety to impress the trial. 

TENTH CONGRESS— ¥\rst Session.— Met Oct. 26, 1807, 
and organized by electing Joseph B. Barnum, Republican, 
of Massachusetts, Speaker, there being again a Republican, ma- 
jority in both branches. An early session was called to consider 
the attitude of England. The foreign outlook was by no means 
assuring. The English treaty of 1806 had been rejected by the 
President on his own responsibility, because, like the Jay treaty 
of 1795, it left England at liberty to search American ships and 
impress American seamen. This the Federals stoutly opposed 
as a bold assumption on the part of the President and because 
they, being largely the commercial part of the community, were 
most anxious for some kind of a treaty with England. But 
above all the snubbing of England by the President led her to 
stubborn and retaliatory renewal of her aggressions. In June, 
1807, the Leopard, a British frigate, attacked the Chesapeake, an 
American frigate, in Hampton Roads, and forcibly removed four 



472 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

seamen, ostensibly English. Here parties swung to and fro and 
almost embraced. The Federals became indignant at England 
for this outrage. The Republicans had grown lukewarm toward 
France, who, though not so boldly, was practising the same in- 
vasions of neutral rights. Our commerce suffered most from 
English aggressions, only because England was stronger than 
France on the water. So great was the destruction of our com- 
merce that Jefferson privately wrote how he had come to regard 
" England as a den of pirates and France as a den of thieves." 

EMBARGO ACT. — England's prohibition of all commerce 
with France, a similar prohibition by France, blockades by each, 
searches of neutrals by both, led the President to a proclamation 
against British armed ships entering American ports. To sup- 
port him in this was the object of the called session. The Re- 
publicans passed his Embargo bill, against the opposition of the 
Federals supported by the Randolph Republicans, or quids, as 
they were facetiously called, both of whom argued that it would 
retroact on the United States and lead to more complete com- 
mercial ruin than direct aggression by either England or France 
had done. The Republicans averred it must be either an Em- 
bargo or war, and chose the former, not without a modification, 
however, to the extent of making it operative during the Presi- 
dent's pleasure. The Embargo Act passed Dec. 21, 1807, by a 
vote of 87 to 35 in the House and 19 to 9 in the Senate. It 
prohibited American vessels sailing from foreign ports, foreign 
vessels taking cargoes from American ports, and all coasters 
from landing cargoes elsewhere than in the United States. It 
proved to be a veritable boomerang, as the Federals had pre- 
dicted. Congress adjourned April 25, 1808. 

ELECTION OF 1808. — During the summer and autumn 
of 1808 sentiment was shaping for the Presidential contest. For 
a long time (since 1806) Randolph had been actively engineer- 
ing the cause of Monroe, who was Minister to England, against 
Madison, whom Jefferson had been coaching for his successor. 
But the Congressional caucus nominations at the called session 
had resulted in the nomination of James Madison, Va., for Presi- 
dent, and George Clinton, N. Y., for Vice-President, on the part 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 473 

of the Republicans, and C. C. Pinckney, S. C, for President, and 
Rufus King, N. Y., for Vice-President, on the part of the Repub- 
Hcans. Jefferson, like Washington, had been requested to accept 
a third term but declined. The issue turned on the Embargo 
Act, the Federals denouncing it as unconstitutional, as destructive 
of American commerce, and as tending to help England as 
against France — a cunning argument in view of previous Re- 
publican favoritism for France, yet one whose truth was daily 
becoming apparent. They carried their opposition to the verge 
of physical resistance along the New England coast, and really 
lost sight of the political situation in their vehement desire to 
force the repeal of a destructive and obnoxious law. The result 
in November was a majority of Republican electors, though by 
no means as large as that for Jefferson. 

TENTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Nov. 7, 1808. 
Opened with protests against English and French aggressions, 
and an attempt of the Federals to repeal the odious Embargo 
Act, whose operation had by this time driven them to commer- 
cial despair. The President was informed by John Q. Adams, 
who had resigned from the Legislature of his State (Mass.) be- 
cause his advocacy of the Embargo had drawn public censure, 
that it would be impossible to further enforce the act in New 
England, and that a scheme of open resistance was already in 
course of preparation. However truthful this might have been — 
it was stoutly denied, — and however much it may have been a 
part of Adams' wish to thus secure administrative favor — he was 
soon after sent as minister to' Russia, — it is certain Jefferson 
changed front on the question, and with him the entire Repub- 
lican party. The bill was repealed, the repeal to operate on and 
after March 4, 1809, and a simple Non-Intercourse Act substi- 
tuted. The Republicans even went so far as to pronounce in 
favor of an American navy, and full protection of American 
rights on the high seas. Had this wonderful surrender taken 
place a few months earlier, the Federals must have swept the 
country in the Presidential contest. But it was shrewdly post- 
poned till after the verdict had been recorded. 

The electoral votes were counted in February. Madison had 



474 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



for President 122, and George Clinton 6. Pinckney had for 
President 47. P'or Vice-President Clinton had 113, King 47, 
and 15 were scattering. Congress adjourned j/;/^ ^^^^'^ March 4, 
1809. Madison and Clinton were sworn into office March 4, 
1809. 

VI. 

MADISON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1809 — March 3, 1813. 
James Madison, Va., President. George Clinton, N. Y., Vice- 
President. 

Sessions. 



Congresses. 
Eleventh Congress. 

Twelfth Congress. 



ri, Ma; 

\ 2, No^ 



2, November 2, 

ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 
States. 33,000. 

Connecticut 7 

Delaware I 

Georgia 4 

Kentucky 6 

Maryland 9 

Massachusftrs 17 

New Hampshire,. ., 5 

New Jersey 6 

New York 17 

North Carolina. ... 12 

Ohio I 

Pennsylvania 18 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina .... 8 

Tennessee 3 

Vermont 4 

Virginia 22 

Totals 142 



I, May 22, 1S09 — June 28, 1 809, extra session, 
ovember 27, 1809 — May I, 1810. 
:cember 3, 1810 — Marcli 3, 1811. 
, November 4, 181 1 — July 6, 1S12. 



[8i2 — March 3, 1813. 



THE CABINET.^ 

Secrpta'-y of State. . . . 
Secretary ot Treasury 





Republi 


:ans. 


Federals. 




J. Madi- G 


. Clinton, 


C.C. P 


nck- 


R. King, 


Votes 


son, Va. 


N. Y.^ 


ney, S 


C. 


N. Y. 


9 






9 




9 


3 






3 




3 


' 6 


6 


6 








8 


7 


7 






. . I vacancy 


II 


9 


9 


2 




2 


19 






19 




19 


7 






7 




7 


8 


8 


8 








19 


13 


13 


Sc. 




Sc. 


14 


ri 


II 


3 




3 


3 


3 


Sc. 








20 


20 


23 


. . 






4 






4 




4 


10 


10 


10 


. . 




. . 


5 


5 


5 








6 


6 








Sc. 


24 


24 


24 








176 


122 


113 


47 




47 




Robert Smith 


Md. 










Albert Gallati 


n, Pa... 






. Continued. 



* Of those marked scattering Clinton received 6 for President, and for Vice-Presi- 
dent Madison received 3, John Langdon 9, and James Monroe 3. 

f The Cabinets as here found are those first organized by the incoming administra- 
tions. For the changes and all incumbents see the respective department heads under 
" Ruling Nationally." 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 475 

The Cabinet — Continued. 

Secretary of War William Eustis, Mass. 

Secretary of Navy .Paul Hamilion, S. C. 

Attorney-General C. A. Rodney, Pa Continued. 

Postmaster-General Gideon Granger, Conn " 

POLITICAL SITUATION.— Th^ Republicans were on the 
eve of an entire change of policy. Jefferson had adroitly handled 
the old Federal policy of neutrality so as to keep a show of firm- 
ness, and at the same time avoid armed conflict with England 
or France. On the score of economy he opposed high taxes, 
a navy, an army. Madison fell heir to this policy. When 
Erskine, British Minister, mistakingly informed him that Eng- 
land desired peace, Madison immediately suspended the Non- 
Intercourse Act, as he was authorized by its terms to do, so far 
as England was concerned. But when England repudiated the 
conduct of Erskine, the President had to restore the operation 
of the act. Whether this was sheer double-dealing on the part 
of England, or only a Republican trick to influence sentiment, 
as the Federals claimed, from that time on the drift toward war 
was too strong for the Republicans to resist. The schism in the 
ranks of the party left an active minority to operate on the strict 
party flanks. It was a time when a body of new leaders, active 
and strong, could walk away with the organization and shift its 
ancient policy. From this time on, too, we begin to hear popular 
mention of the word Democrat. As admiration for France, which 
had made the word Republican popular, subsided, as Jacobin 
and Democrat were no longer offensively identical, and further 
as there were two schools of thought in the Republican ranks, 
one newer and more aggressive than the other, it became com- 
mon for the older to designate themselves as Democrats, that is, 
the true Republicans, the primitive Democratic-Republicans. 

ELEVENTH CONGRESS— ¥.Ktv2. Session.— Met May 22, 
1809, with a Republican majority. Organized by re-electing 
Joseph B. Varnum, Mass., Speaker. The only matter before it 
was the President's suspension and reassertion of the Non-Inter- 
course Act. After affirming his action Congress adjourned, June 
28, 1809. 

ELEVENTH CONGRESS— Y'lvst Regular Session.— Met 



476 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Nov. 27, 1809. The Non-Intercourse act was continued, and 
the British Minister was censured for contradictory statertients 
and obtrusive conduct. France had shrewdly shaped her com- 
mercial policy so as to receive all the benefits of the American 
position. This galled England all the more, and as a conse- 
quence her attitude became more hostile. In advocacy of her 
right to search American vessels for deserted British seamen, 
she announced as final the doctrine, " Once an Englishman, al- 
ways an Englishman." During the session the Republicans had 
a large majority and shaped legislation without much dissent 
from the Federals. Adjourned May i, 18 10. 

ELEVENTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Dec. 3, 

1 8 10. The Non-Intercourse Act was repealed as to France and 
continued as to England. This threw both England and Amer- 
ica on their mettle. But the administration was not yet done 
with its economic and peace ideas. The National Bank, char- 
tered in 1 79 1 for twenty years, was asking for a new lease of 
life. It had, as we have seen, secured the favor of a charter 
through a momentary spasm of liberal construction on the part 
of strict interpreters of the Constitution. Such a spasm was 
not now on, though it had so many Republican friends in both 
branches that the bill granting a new charter was defeated by 
only one vote in the House and by the casting vote of the Vice- 
President in the Senate. It therefore wound up its business and 
ceased to exist. The attitude of Federal and Republican on 
this question of a national bank became, in after years, that of 
Whig and Democrat on the same question. Congress adjourned 
sine die, March 3, 181 1. 

TWELFTH CONGRESS— Y\xs,\. Session.— Met Nov. 4, 

1811. Either the administration must accept the idea of forcible 
resistance to Encrland or e^o to the wall. American vessels, es- 
timated at 900, had been captured since 1803. American com- 
merce had become a thing of the past. It would not do to allow 
the idea to grow further that the Republicans were aiming a blow 
at commercial New England by persistence in their suicidal 
policy of dilly-dall3'ing diplomacy and devouring peace. A new 
order of men came to the front. Henry Clay, Ky., was elected 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 477 

Speaker. John C. Calhoun, S. C, became an ambitious and able 
leader in the House, as did William H. Crawford, Ga., in the 
Senate. Fortunately none of these new leaders, fully imbued 
with the war spirit, thoroughly determined on a change from 
the economic, hesitating, and now cowardly, policy of Jefferson 
and Madison, were mistrusted by Madison. Clay had been his 
firm friend, and had come out of a two-term career in the Senate 
the better to lead on the wider plane of the House. Therefore 
their work of swinging the administration and the party from 
its peace moorings was comparatively easy. During the session, 
and against the opposition of the Federals and a Republican 
minority, bills for increasing the navy and organizing the militia 
were passed. Whatever scruples the President may still have 
had about accepting the situation and affirming this heterodox 
legislation was overcome by the intimation that his renomination 
depended on his acquiescence. He therefore fell fully in with 
the new leaders, and made his expose of the Henry documents * 
which so outraged the sentiment of New England, but which 
brought from Congress the action designed, viz., a resolution de- 
nunciatory of England for an attempt to divide a friendly nation. 

This was followed by an Embargo on American shipping for 
ninety days, which of course brought an announcement from 
the English Minister (May 30, 1812), which was supported by 
the Parliament, that England would not change her policy 
toward neutrals. 

DECLARATION OF WAR.— A message from the Presi- 
dent, June I, 18 1 2, referred to a committee, brought a report 
which, as a summary of grievances, complained of the British 
orders in council, of the unfair system of blockades of the French 
ports, of the refusal to settle claims for damages, and, last but 
not least, of the searching of American ships and impressment 
of American seamen. It recommended a declaration of war. A 



* The President made this expose in a special message. The documents, he 
said, he bought of one John Henry for ^50,000. They purported to show how- 
Henry had been a Canadiin agent sent to influence New Englmd Federals to join 
their cause with that of England. The British Minister denied all knowledge 
of such agent or agency. 



478 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

war act was consequently passed and promptly signed by the 
President (June 1 8, 1812), who had by this time received a second 
nomination for the Presidency and who was acting in strict con- 
cert with the war wing of his party. At first the declaration of 
war was received with applause. But a reaction soon set in. 
The Federals of New England published a protest against it as 
sectional and not national, the act of a party and not of the 
country. Strictly construing the Constitution, Massachusetts 
and Connecticut refused to permit their militia to go beyond the 
boundary of their States till an actual invasion had taken place. 
To answer them the Republicans became liberal interpreters of 
the Constitution and would obliterate State lines and forget all 
about State rights in order to present a solid national front 
to the foe. Louisiana had become a State in the Union, April 
30, 1812. 

TARIFF OF 1 812. — Madison had urged in his message a re- 
vision of the Tariff. The new leaders took it up. Calhoun and 
Lowndes favored Clay's new doctrine that the Protective idea 
ought not any longer to be secondary to the Revenue idea. 
South Carolina was then a high protection State, England hav- 
ing levied exorbitant duties on raw cotton. Here was a marvel- 
lous shifting of party doctrine. The Republicans became such 
liberal interpreters of the Constitution that they not only swung 
to the Protective notion, but actually used the report of Hamil- 
ton, which brought the earliest Tariff acts, in vindication of their 
position. The Federals, in their weakness, forgetfulness of party 
traditions and determination to see nothing good in the adminis- 
tration, swung clear over to the abandoned strict construction 
doctrine of their political enemies, and through such as Webster 
(then in the House) and others opposed the Protective thought. 
Sentiment on this Tariff act ought to be carefully noted. It was 
the beginning of that division in the Republican party which 
prepared the way for " The American Idea," for " Internal Im- 
provement," and for the Whig organization, which was Clay's 
outlet from the strict construction columns. Indeed, even at 
this session a bill for internal improvement was passed under 
Clay's leadership, which Madison vetoed. The tariff act was 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 479 

passed July i, 1812, and it marks the highest rates of duty 
reached from the foundation of the government till 1842. Sugar 
went from 2^ cents per pound to 5 ; coffee from 5 cents per 
pound to 10; tea from 18 cents per pound to 36; pig iron from 
17 yi per cent, to 30; bar iron from 17% per cent, to 30; glass 
from 22^ per cent, to 40; manufactures of cotton from 171^ 
per cent, to 30; woollens from 17 per cent, to 30; silk from 15 
per cent, to 25. Congress adjourned July 6, 18 1 2. 

ELECTION' OF 1812. — We have seen the conditions upon 
which Madison was permitted to become a candidate for a second 
term. But he still had opposition. De Witt Clinton, N. Y., who 
would have been the candidate in case Madison had declined to 
wheel into the war line, refused to be bound by the bargain. The 
other Republican States had become jealous of Virginia's claim 
to be •' the home of Presidents." Clinton moved on this line, 
secured the nomination of the New York Legislature and issued 
an address (" Clinton's Platform ") protesting against caucus 
nominations of Presidential candidates, the continuance of public \ 

men in office for long periods, the claim of particular States to 
monopolize principal offices, and " that official regency which \ 

prescribed tenets of political faith.'^ His followers became 
known as Clintonian Democrats. 

Madison was nominated in May, 1 81 2. John Langdon was 
nominated for Vice-President, but declining on account of age, 
Elbridge Gerry, Mass., was substituted. The Federals, taking 
advantage of the schism in the Republican ranks, met in caucus 
in New York city and nominated De Witt Clinton for President, 
with Jared Ingersoll, Pa., for Vice-President.* The election 
came off in November. A large majority of Republican electors 
was chosen. The Congressional elections resulted also in a 
majority of Republican members favorable to the war. 

TWELFTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Nov. 2, 
18 1 2. There was a slight adjustment of parties on account of 

* Eleven Stntes were represented in this caucus or convention. It was a bitterly 
partisan body, determined to see nothing good in any act of Madison, and as an 
evidence of its desperation, willing to support a soured Republicaia in order to de- 
feat the regular Republican nominee. 



480 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



the war. Some Republicans voted with the Peace Federals, but 
they were more than offset by War Federals voting with the 
straight Republicans. There was but little opposition from any 
source to an increase of the navy, which had already won the 
right to be encouraged by proving a match for the best equipped 
ships of England. Other measures of war were carried by Re- 
publican votes. The count of the electoral vote was made in 
February, and showed 128 for Madison and 89 for Clinton. For 
Vice-President 131 for Gerry and S6 for Ingersoll. Congress 
adjourned March 3, 1813. The candidates elect were sworn into 
office, March 4, 1 8 12. 

VII. 



MADISON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 18 13 — March 3, 18 17. 
James Madison, Va., President. Elbridge Gerry, Mass. 



Vice- 



Congresses. 



Thirteenth Congress 



Fourteenth Congress 



ELECTORAL 



President. 

Sessions. 

May 24, 1813- 
December 6, i 
September 19, 

1, Decemlier 4, i 

2, December 2, 1 

VOTE. 



( I, M 

i 3. ^St 



—August 2, 181 3, extra session. 
813— April 18, 1814. 
1814 — March 3, 1815. 
815— April 30, 18 1 6. 
816 — March 3, 1S17. 



Republicans. 



Fed. or Clinton Dem. 



Basis of 

States. 35,000. Vote. 

Connecticut 7 9 

Delaware 2 4 

Georgia 6 8 

Kentucky 10 12 

Louisiana i 3 

Maryland 9 II 

Massnchusetts 20 22 

New Hampshire. . . 6 8 

New Jersey 6 8 

New York 27 29 

North Carolina 13 15 

Ohio 6 8 

Pennsylvania 23 25 

Rhode Island 2 4 

South Carolina.... 9 II 

Tennessee 6 8 

Vermont 6 8 

Virginia 23 25 

Totals .T82 218 



J. Madi- 
son, Va. 



Elbridge Ger- DeWitt Jared Inger- 
ry, Mass. Clinton,N.Y. soil, Pa. 



II 

8 
8 

ll 
[28 



IS 

7, 
25 



131 



5 

22 

8 

8 

29 



5 
20 

7 

8 

29 



Vacancy. 



89 



86 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 4gl 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State James Monroe, Va Continued, 

Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin, Pa " 

Secretary of War John Armstrong, N. Y. . . . " 

Secretary of Navy William Jones, Pa " 

Attorney-General William Pinckney, Md " 

Postmaster-General Gideon Granger, Conn " . 

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS— K^\.r2. Session.— Called May 
24, 1813, to provide means for the war. House organized by re- 
electing Henry Clay, Ky., Speaker. Republican majority greatly 
reduced in both House and Senate, the vote on the Speakership 
being 89 to 54, though the latter were not all Federals, but partly 
anti-war Republicans. In the Senate there was a strong faction 
of anti-administration Republicans. After meeting the object of 
its call the Congress adjourned, Aug. 2, 181 3. 

WAR SENTIMENT— It was already manifest that the war 
was destined to be unpopular with the country. Do their best 
the Republicans could not keep up a furore respecting it. The 
Federal sentiment, still strong in the Eastern States, was pro- 
nouncedly against it. The Embargo, while it may not have 
been designed as such, was a cruel blow at the centres of com- 
merce. The peace faction in the Republican ranks was grow- 
ing more out-spoken. England, in order to encourage a wider 
division of sentiment between the Eastern and other States, had 
actually gone so far as to exempt them from her blockade of the 
Atlantic coast, and it was charged by the Republicans that at 
the port of New London, Conn., the departure of American ves- 
sels was secured, notwithstanding the Embargo, by means of 
blue light signals to the English blockading fleet. 

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS— Y'nst Regular Session.— Met 
Dec. 6, 181 3. Financial subjects, relating to the war, were chiefly 
uppermost. But in view of alleged violations* of the Embargo 
Act by New England mariners a stricter act was passed, embrac- 
ing all ships, large and small. The war was in the midst of its 
greatest activity. Congress adjourned April 18, 1 8 14. 

THIRTEENTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Called as 
early as Sept. 19, 18 14, to consider negotiations for peace which 
had been begun in August, soon after the capture and burning 
31 



482 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of Washington by the English, and when it had become appa- 
rent that the provisions to meet vigorous and protracted war 
were as inadequate as was the popular sentiment to further sus- 
tain it. England had gotten rid of her home adversary, Napo- 
leon, and was at liberty to direct her undivided attention to 
America. She had long since revoked her orders in council and 
was only insisting on her right to search Americaif ships and 
impress her deserting seamen. The administration, in view of 
the entire situation, had therefore wisely instructed its commis- 
sioner abroad to negotiate for peace without insisting on rectifica- 
tion of the " search and impressment " grievances. But as this 
showed weakness, the English grew bold, and would not only 
have no American fleets or military posts along the Great Lakes, 
but a permanent Canadian barrier erected in the shape of an 
Indian Confederacy. 

HARTFORD CONVENTION.— ThQ administration and its 
active Republican support were in a quandary. The weakness 
of abject surrender must be confessed, or resort must be had to 
those reserved powers which strict interpreters of the Constitu- 
tion had ever denied to the government. The War Department 
favored a more imposing and effective army, by means of a 
draft and the enlistment of minors. The Navy Department pro- 
posed to impress seamen, after the English fashion. Every 
effort was made by the administration to recover lost ground, 
put on a front worthy the American name, and fight the war to 
a successful end. But it was too late in the day. The Presi- 
dent's own party could not be imbued with his suddenly assumed 
liberal construction notions. His radical war measures were 
either defeated or coldly favored. Beyond, the situation was 
appalling. England held vantage ground in Maine and along 
the northern border. New England had been almost entirely 
neglected by the government. Every war measure thus far had 
been more destructive to her industry and wealth, and more dis- 
paraging to her people, than to the overt enemy. Massachu- 
setts invited a conference (Oct., 1814) of the New England 
States "to confer on the subject of their public grievances." 
This met at Hartford in December, 18 14, and sat for three 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 483 

weeks. It was the historic Hartford Convention, so odious to 
Republicans, so dear to Federals. Its secret proceedings 
aroused suspicion and drew on its members and their cause a 
denunciation than which nothing could be more bitter, and a 
proscription even, which was the knell of their party importance. 
So far were the charges of treasonable design carried that, years 
afterwards, it was deemed proper to break the seal of secresy 
and publish the entire proceedings, but too late, of course, to 
remove the stigma which inflamed partisanship had fastened to 
the event.* 

WELCOME PEACE.— The treaty of Ghent had been signed 
Dec. 14, 1 8 14, and in February, 18 1 5, the text reached the 
country. Notwithstanding the fact that it was a barren paper, 
scarcely touching on the causes of the war and securing not one 
of the objects for which it had been declared, it was received with 
universal rejoicing. The President felt that it was a happy 
escape for himself and party from dire financial straits, and the 
Federals regarded^ it as the lifting of a heavy load from our 
commercial industry and the end of a farcical and iniquitous 
proceeding throughout. But the latter never escaped from the 
political issues the war had raised. Their decay, as a power, 
was, thenceforth rapid. Peace eventuated in a return of pros- 
perity and plenty to the land. 

* Judged by the proceedings the convention was not only timely and orderly, but 
representative of grievances which were hardly to be borne, and which ought never 
to have existed. It was simply unfortunate in its manner of deliberation, and in the 
fact that the close of the war shut off public presentation of its protest and resolu- 
tions to the government. The resolutions opposed (i) drafts, conscriptions or im- 
pressments not authorized by the Constitution. (2) A plan whereby the respective 
States or sections might defend themselves against the enemy and pay for the same, 
the central government to reimburse them. (3) A full militia for each State, with 
power to detach a portion at the request of other States, when invaded. (4) Seven 
amendments recommended to the Constitution: (i) Representatives and direct 
taxes to be apportioned among the States in proportion to the number of /ree 
persons. (2) Admission of States only on vote of two-thirds of both Houses. 
(3) No embargo beyond sixty days. (4) No interdiction of commercial intercourse 
except by two-third votes of both Houses of Congress. (5) No declaration of war 
except by vote of twoythirds of both Houses. (6) No naturalized person to be 
eligible to Congress. (7) No second term for the President, nor any President from 
the same State twice in succession, A fifth resoWe provided for the reassembling 
of the convention in case these resolutions did not bring redress. 



484 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Congress had easy work the balance of the session, repealing 
war legislation and reducing everything, except the navy, to a 
peace footing. It adjourned sme die, March 3, 181 5. 

POLITICAL RESULTS.— ^\\& war had been a lesson to the 
Republicans. It taught them that however captivating the strict 
construction notions of their party had been, and however 
pleasant it was to indulge them as theories in time of peace, 
exigencies might arise when they would prove a source of weak- 
ness to their professors. As a consequence, they had advanced 
up to the old Federal plane, and many of them were firmly 
entrenched on it. The Federals, having no cohesive force, not 
even a reason for their name, after their- mission in successfully 
establishing the government had ended, and after the acceptance 
of the fact of its existence as well as their cardinal principles, 
by the Republicans, floundered about on the negative of issues 
presented by their opponents, and at last were ready to dis- 
integrate. It might be said that so far as the old lines went, 
there was no political party after the war. The Federal name 
was hardly used or usable. The Republican name was used to 
hold together a sentiment which was widely variant from and far 
in advance of its authors. 

FOURTEENTH CONGRESS— First Session.— Met Dec. 4, 
1 81 5. The situation had enured to the benefit of the Republi- 
cans, and they had a pronounced majority in both branches. 
The House organized by re-electing Henry Clay, Speaker. 
April 27, 1 816, an amended tariff act was passed, which reduced 
the duties imposed by the act of 181 2. Discussion of it brought 
a distinct announcement of the idea of protecting the Ameri- 
can industries which had sprung up since the war and 
whose existence was threatened by the importation of cheaper 
English goods. But this idea failed to influence the bill favor- 
ably. 

A NEW BANK. — Madison had vetoed a bill to recharter a 
National Bank, only the year before (181 5). Clay took the 
ground that the experiences of the war showed the necessity for 
a national currency and for a national financial agency like a 
bank. Though this was again counter to the traditional strict 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 4g5 

construction views of the Republicans, and though it met the 
determined opposition of the once Hberal construction Federals, 
and of a minority of the Republicans, a National Bank charter 
was authorized, April, 1 8x6, to run for twenty years, or until 
1836. Strange to say it was modeled on that of 1 79 1 which the 
Anti-Federals had unsuccessfully opposed, and on that of 18 11, 
which the Republicans had successfully opposed, and the argu- 
ments for its support were a repetition of those framed and used 
by Hamilton, together with those supplied by the success of his 
first financial experiment. The bill was promptly signed by the 
President, and a new National Bank became a fact. The rest 
of the session was consumed in legislation on internal affairs. 
Congress adjourned April 30, 1 8 16. 

ELECTION OF 18 16. — The administration favored James 
Monroe, Va., then Secretary of State, for President. The Con- 
gressional caucus of the last session carried out its wishes, but 
against an earnest party protest, which secured fifty-four votes in 
the caucus for W. H. Crawford, Ga. to sixty-five for Monroe. 
This action did not satisfy Burr and some other extremists, who 
attempted to break the caucus nomination by denouncing the 
caucus system, opposing Virginia's attempts to dominate the 
politics of the country, and finally favoring the nomination of 
Andrew Jackson. The original nomination stood, and that of 
Daniel D. Tompkins, N. Y., was added to it as Vice-President. 
The Federals nominated Rufus King, N. Y., but divided their 
votes for Vice-President. The result in November was their 
overwhelming defeat, they carrying only Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut and Delaware. 

FOURTEENTH r6)i\^(S'i?^55— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
2, 1816. No measures of party interest came up. The Electoral 
count, in February, showed 183 votes for Monroe for President, 
and 34 for King; 183 for Tompkins for Vice-President, and 34 
scattering. Indiana was admitted as a State Dec. 11, 1816. 
Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 18 17. The President and 
Vice-President were sworn into office March 4, 1 8 17. 



486 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



VIII. 

MONROE'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 181 /-March 3, 1821. 

James Monroe, Va., President. Daniel D. Tompkins, N. Y., 

Vice-President. 

Sessions. 
( I, December i, 1817-April 20, 18 18. 
(2, November 16, 1818-March 3, 1819. 

f I, December 6, 1819-May 15, 1820. 
(2, November 13, i82C>-March3, 1821. 

ELECTORAL VOT£.^ 



Confesses. 
fiftkenth congress. 

Sixteenth Congress. 



Republican. 



Federal. 







Daniel D. 




James Mon- 


Tompkins 


Votes. 


roe, Va. 


N. Y. 


9 






4 






8 


8 


8 


3 


3 


3 


12 


12 


12 


3 


3 





II 


8 


8 


22 






8 


8 


8 


8 


8 


8 


29 


29 


29 


15 


15 


15 


8 


8 


8 


25 


25 


25 


4 


4 


4 


11 


II 


II 


8 


8 


8 


8 


8 


8 


25. 


25 


25 


221 


183 


183 



N. Y. 



No nom 

ination. 

SC 

SC 



States. Basis of 

35,000. 

Connecticut 7 

Delaware 2 

Georgia 6 

Indiana i 

Kentucky 10 

Louisiana i 

Maryland 9 

Massachusett.s 20 

New Hampshire ... 6 

New Jersey 6 

New York 27 

North Carolina 13 

Ohio 6 

Pennsylvania 23 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina 9 

Tennessee 6 

Vermont 6 

Virginia 23 

Totals 183 

THE CAB/NET. 

Secretary of State John QuinCy Adams, Mass. 

Secretary of Treasury Wm. H. Crawford, Ga Continued. 

Secretary of War -.George Graham, Va. 

Secretary of Navy B. W. Crowningshield, Mass. ... " 

Attorney- General Richard Rush, Pa " 

Postmaster- General R.J. Meigs, Ohio " 

THE INAUGURAL. — Monroe ushered in what was popu- 
larly known as " The era of good feehng." The asperities of 

* There were 4 vacancies. Of the scattering votes, John E. Howard received 
22 ; James Ross, 5 ; John Marshall, 4 ; Robert G. Harper, 3. 



34 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 487 

the war were passing away. Party differences were subsiding^, 
or rather there were no longer two confronting parties, for the 
last election had settled the matter of organized Federal oppo- 
sition. That party passed away, seeing its primary glory repeated 
in the triumph of the Republicans, and many of its ruling tenets 
adopted by them as a matter of principle, or put into practice by 
them as a matter of necessity. Monroe's inaugural was so 
liberal in tone that it satisfied men, of whatever shade of political 
opinion. Like Washington, he made a tour of the Northern 
States (June, 1817), which added greatly to his popularity. To 
help " The Era," business was meeting with a rebound, and the 
people were prosperous amid most welcome peace. 

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS— Y\xs>\. Session.— Met Dec. i, 
1 8 17, with a large Republican majority. The Federals were so 
few in number, or so lukewarm in opposition, that the House 
organized by the unanimous election of Clay to the Speakership. 
Discussion of the Tariff resulted in extending the act of 1 8 16 
for seven years. Propositions to use the dividends of the 
National Bank, instead of appropriations, and to recognize the 
revolting colonies of Spain in South America, as Republics, 
were voted down. Mississippi entered the Union Dec. 10, 18 17. 
Congress adjourned April 20, 1 81 8. 

THE RECESS. — During the summer Jackson made his 
celebrated invasion of Florida, then belonging to Spain, in order 
to punish the Indians who had retreated from Georgia. Here 
he captured and put to death the notorious Arbuthnot and Am- 
brister, whom he charged as outlaws. They happened to be 
British subjects, and this fact, united with the danger of re-openr 
ing the feuds of the late war, made the matter a delicate one to 
handle. But the most important political feature of the time 
was the shaping of sentiment in the direction of a new party. 
Monroe had followed the new school of Republican leaders, as 
Clay and Calhoun, through their advocacy of a Protective Tariff, 
but he could not follow Clay in his advocacy of internal improve- 
ment, though his first inaugural inclined to it. Clay's position 
had always been conspicuous and his leadership pronounced. 
He and Calhoun had changed the tardy and damaging peace 



488 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

policy of Madison to one of war, and Clay especially had stood 
head and shoulders above all others in advocating a stronger 
army and navy. During the last session he had gone still 
further, and suggested a new use for the Bank, as well as a new 
foreign policy with reference to the South American Republics. 
The Federals and liberal Republicans looked with favor on his 
advanced doctrines, but the old school of strict interpreters 
looked on them with alarm. These latter defeated his favorite 
measures of the last session, and thereby threw him on his own 
never failing resources. Tt was more than ever evident that the 
germs of a new party were pushing in the loins of the dominant 
organization. 

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS— Second Sesdon.— Met Nov. i6, 
1 8 1 8. The matter of Jackson's conduct of the Indian (Seminole) 
war came conspicuously forward. It was proposed to censure 
him for his execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, but after long 
debate, the matter was postponed indefinitely by the Senate, 
though a majority against censure was obtained in the House. 
As long as Jackson lived, his opponents refused to be quieted 
about what they thought an arbitrary and high-handed pro- 
cedure. The controversy resulted in one good. The govern- 
ment, tired of the ever recurring complications with the Indians, 
Spaniards, and British adventurers in Florida, determined to buy 
the territory, authority to do so having been given by Congress 
years before (i8o6). Then came one of those unaccountable 
blunders which, supplemented in after years by the pride of 
undoing and by the fierce sectional and aggrandizing spirit of 
the time, cost the country the sacrifices of a war. In considera- 
tion of ;^5, 000,000 and the abandonment of all claims to French 
Louisiana west of the Sabine by the United States, Spain ceded 
Florida, Feb. 22, 1819. West of the Sabine meant Texas, and 
the recovery of Texas meant the Mexican war (1846). 

MISSOURI AND SLAVERY.— llVmois became a State of 
the Union Dec. 3, 18 18. Long before this the policy of off- 
setting a free by a slave State prevailed. This at first was de- 
signed to keep up a balance of parties and to take full and legal 
advantage of the Constitutional clause which gave representa- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 489 

tion to three-fifths of the slave population. But it had gotten to 
mean vastly more, as sentiment divided on the rightfulness of 
slavery, and was to mean more and more as time went on. Mis- 
souri asked the Congress to admit her as a State. The 6ne 
thing unusual about her situation was that she was beyond the 
Mississippi, whither the recognized lines of division — Mason and 
Dixon line of 36° 30', and the Ohio River — between the Slave and 
Free States did not extend. An amendment was offered to the 
bill to admit her, drawn in the language of the ordinance of 1787 
for the government of " The Territory Northwest of the Ohio 
River," prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude in Missouri, 
except as a punishment for crime. The amendment was so sud- 
den and unexpected that parties sat for a time with bated breath 
and never recovered their lines on the question. It became a 
test of Free States against Slave States, and the former proved 
strongest in the House, carrying the amendment. The latter 
proved strongest in the Senate, and defeated it. This was the 
injection of slavery into politics, and the beginning of its ex- 
tinction. A common, or almost. Colonial existence for it had 
been gradually narrowed to a line, south of which it had come 
to be regarded civilly as a necessary and entailed evil, industri- 
ally as a source of profit, and politically as a potential force.* 
The Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 18 19. 

SIXTEENTH CONGRESS— Y'xxst Session.— Met Dec. 6, 
1 8 19. Clay was again elected Speaker by an almost unanimous 
vote. The advance made by his liberal construction views may 
be measured by the passage in the House of a Tariff bill which 

* Historically, the first sectional debate over slavery arose in 1793, on the presen- 
tation of a petition to Congress from a " Philadelphia Society," appealing to it " to 
use its influence to stop the traffic in slaves." At that time members arrayed them- 
selves in debate, not according to party, but according to States, and some Southern 
debaters, of ultra turn, went so far as to protest, even to the extent of civil war, 
against interference with slavery. All saw the possibility of the question becoming, 
at no remote date, a political if not a dangerously partisan and sectional one. The 
apprehensions of the hour were quieted by the passage of the first Fugitive Slave 
law, Feb. 12, 1793. This date is significantly coincident with the invention of 
Whitney's cotton gin, which gave to slave labor a profit never before realized, and 
cemented it into an institution to be defended at all hazard. 



490 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

definitely affirmed the Protective idea, but which the Senate re- 
jected. As the discussion of this bill was dispassionate, and the 
large Republican majority fairly divided on it, it is a proper 
place to get such a view of the politics of the Tariff as will ex- 
tend even to the present day. The Protective idea as projected 
into the Tariff legislation of that time was justified by those who 
favored a liberal construction of the Constitution. They found 
in the power '* to regulate commerce and provide for the com- 
mon defence " a warrant not only to raise necessary revenue by 
means of a Tariff, but a right to make that Tariff a protective 
one, that is, a means of fostering domestic manufactures and 
thus creating a home market for home agricultural products. 
As a corollary to this hung, or grew, the plan of Internal Im- 
provement, which depended not more on a liberal construction 
of the Constitution, but which was thought by its opponents to 
belong to the States. On the contrary, those who clung to a 
rigid construction of the Constitution granted the right of the 
government to provide for its expenses and pay its debts by 
means of money raised by a Tariff on imports, but they regarded 
a Tariff, so arranged as to protect American manufactures against 
foreign competition, as a usurpation of the powers conferred, or 
intended to be conferred, by the Constitution.* 

MISSOURI COMPROMISE.— U3.mQ applied for admission 
into the Union. She was populous, ready, and anxious to es- 
cape her Massachusetts allegiance. But the Free States would 
then preponderate in the Senate. Missouri again asked for 
leave to form a State government. Maine was voted in by the 
House. Missouri was granted permission, but with the amend- 
ment of the last session, prohibiting slavery, the vote being en- 
tirely sectional. The Senate threw the responsibility back on 
the House by combining the bills, as originally presented (the 

* The terms "Free Trade," " Tariff for Revenue," and " Tariff for Revenue 
only" were not then as common as now. Then the question of Tariff, in the af- 
firmative, was a question of Constitutional construction and a national policy; in 
the negative, a question of Constitutional construction and a State policy. Now, 
so generally do the liberal construction views prevail, the question is no longer one 
of right or v/rong construction of the Constitution, but one of policy entirely, a 
policy, however, which still divides sentiment and supports parties. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 491 

Missouri bill with slavery), and passing them. This action the 
House rejected. Clay, ever full of expedients, came forward 
with his compromise — the historic " Missouri Compromise of 
1820." It brought about the admission of Maine, March 15, 
1820, and gave leave to Missouri to form a State government 
with slavery. It also prohibited slavery in all territory of the 
United States north of 36° 30', in other words, it extended the 
already familiar Mason and Dixon line through to the Pacific,'''' 
or at least as far as the western boundary of Missouri. Con- 
gress adjourned May 15, 1820. 

ELECTION OF 1820. — This election passed off without 
nominations by either party. The electors chosen cast their 
votes by common consent for Monroe and Tompkins, one how- 
ever voting for John Q. Adams. 

SIXTEENTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Nov. 13, 
1820. Clay's resignation of the Speakership gave opportunity 
for a square test of strength between the liberal and strict schools 
of Republicans. A warm fight for his successor resulted in the 
choice of John W. Taylor, N. Y., who was equally advanced with 
Clay in the matter of Protective Tariff and Internal Improvement, 
and who was opposed, far more earnestly than Clay, to the 
extension of slavery in the Territories.f The heat of this con- 
test was transferred to Missouri's claim for admission as a State, 
she having now prepared a State government, with a clause in 
the Constitution prohibiting free negroes from entering her 
bounds. As a free negro was a citizen in some of the Northern 

* Clay's compromise barely got through the Congress. In the Senate it was car- 
ried by Senators from the Southern and Slave States, against fifteen Senators from 
the Free States. In the House it was carried by a vote of 86 to 82, thirty-five of 
the latter being from Slave Slates and its bitterest opponents. Randolph denounced 
it as a " dirty bargain," and called those " Northern men with Southern principles" 
who were ashamed of them or afraid to stand up for them " doughfaces," a term 
which was in convenient and sarcastic use for forty years. The compromise bill 
was then regarded by its opponents as unconstitutional. The seeds of repeal were 
in its passage. 

f So offensive was this election to the extreme Southern members, or rather so 
significant was it of the growth of liberal construction ideas in the Republican 
ranks, that they chose to see in it a menace to the institution of slavery, and actually 
debated a proposition to secede from the Union. 



492 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

States, this was regarded, in its unqualified form, as unconstitu- 
tionally and offensively restrictive. Debate over the matter took 
all the latitude incident to discussion of the slave question and 
involved all its bitterness. Not until Clay again came forward 
with measures of peace did the contention subside. His propo- 
sition admitted the State, provided the Constitution were so 
amended as to recognize all the citizens of other States. Her 
Legislature did this in June, 1821, and she became a State Aug. 
10, 1821. 

The electoral vote was counted in February, and the status of 
Missouri came up. Denying the right of Congress to interfere 
with slavery within her borders, the Southern members claimed 
that she was already a State, and so determined to count her 
electoral vote. The Northern members, claiming authority of 
Congress over all Territories for any purpose, until fully qualified 
to enter as States, determined that her electoral vote should not 
be counted. After an angry discussion, another compromise was 
effected, which counted the vote with an " if" " If" her vote 
were counted, James Monroe would have 234, out of 235, and 
John Adams I, for President, and Daniel D. Tompkins would 
have 221 for Vice-President, with 13 scattering. ** If," on the 
contrary, her vote were not counted there would be a total of 
only 232, and the Monroe and Tompkins vote would be reduced 
to 231 and 218, respectively. Congress adjourned sine die, 
March 3d, 1821. The candidates-elect were sworn into office 
March 5, 1821, the 4th falling on Sunday. 

IX. 
MONROE'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 

March 5, 1821 — March 3, 1825. 

James Monroe, Va., President Daniel D. Tompkins, N. Y., 

Vice-President, 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Seventeenth Congress. [ '' December 3, 1821-May 8, 1822 

\ 2, December 2, 1822 — March 3, 1823. 

FTrHTFFNTM'roNrRFCis / '' December i, 1823— May 27, 1824. 
I^IGHTEENTH CONGRESS. i ^^ December 6, 1824— March 3, 1825. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



493 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Republican. 



Vote 

3 
9 
4 
8 

3 
3 

12. 

3 

9 

II 

15 
3 
3 



29 

15 
8 

25 

4 

II 

8 
8 

25 
235 



James Mon- 
roe, Va. 

3 
9 
4 
8 

3 

3 

12 

3 

9 

II 

15 
3 

7 
8 

29 

J5 

8 

25 

4 
II 

8 

8 

_£5 
231 



Daniel D. Tomp- 
kins, N. Y, No opposition. 

3 
9 
Sc. 
8 
3 
3 
12 

3 

9 

10 

7 
3 

. . Disputed. 

7 I for J. Q. Adams. 

8 
29 

15 

8 

25 
•4 
II 

8 

8 

_!5 
218 



Basis of 
States. 35,000. 

Alabama i 

Connecticut 7 

Delaware . 2 

Georgia 6 

Illinois I 

Indiana I 

Kentucky 10 

Louisiana I 

Maine 7 

Maryland 9 

Massachusetts 13 

Mississippi I 

Missouri I 

New Hampshire.... 6 

New Jersey 6 

New York 27 

North Carolina 13 

Ohio 6 

Pennsylvania 23 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina 9 

Tennessee 6 

Vermont 6 

Virginia 23 

Totals 187 

THE CABINET 

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Mass.- Continued. 

Secretary of Treasury W, H. Crawford, Ga.. . , 

Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, S. C. . 

Secretary of Navy Smith Thompson, N. Y 

Attorney-General Richard Rush, Pa 

Postmaster-General R- J. Meigs, Ohio 

SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS— Y\r?,\. Session.— Met Dec. 
3, 1 82 1. The organization was effected by electing P. P. Bar- 
bour, Va., Speaker. The fanciful *' era of good feeling " held, so 
far as opposition to the Republicans went, but they were now a 
divided and inharmonious party. The fight over the speaker- 
ship showed that the strict or old school elements were willing 
to die in their trenches rather than suffer themselves to be car- 
ried further by the liberal or new school element. The former 
won the Speaker, but the latter passed a bill to care for the 
National (Cumberland) Road. At this juncture Monroe broke 

* Of the scattering 8 were cast for Richard Stockton ; 4 for Daniel Rodney ; I 
for Robert G. Harper; i for Richard Rush. There were three vacancies. 



494 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

with the liberals, took a decided step backwards and vetoed the 
bill. His veto message discussed the constitutional side of the 
question very elaborately, and concluded with the announcement 
that no power was conferred on Congress to pass laws for in- 
ternal improvements of this kind. The President reached the 
above conclusion only after long hesitation, for his messages 
heretofore rather favored the position of the liberals, a strong 
element in his Cabinet still favored it, and he even advised, in 
his veto, an amendment to the Constitution conferring directly 
the powers on Congress which the liberal interpreters claimed 
it was endowed with by impHcation. However, his position, 
now that it was definitely ascertained, fortified that of the strict 
school, and they summarily disposed of bills involving the same 
principle looking to an internal canal system and a Tariff with 
stronger protective features. 

Nor was the country in a happy mood. Great financial dis- 
tress prevailed. The government was forced to retrench, and 
even to borrow. The division in the Republican ranks v^s 
gradually forcing its way down among the masses, and as is 
common in such cases, its party feeling was keener than between 
old opponents. The Congress adjourned, May 8, 1822. 

SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS — Second Session. — Met 
Dec. 2, 1822. Again the liberals forced their Internal Improve- 
ment and Protective Tariff ideas to the front to meet with defeat 
at the hands of the rigid interpreters. All however united to 
help the administration along in its now difficult work of keep- 
ing financially afloat. An adjournment sine die took place, March 
3, 1823. • . - 

EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS— Yxx^t Session.— Met Dec. i, 
1823, and organized by electing Henry Clay Speaker. This 
election was significant. It showed that the country had swung 
to the liberal side of the Republican party. It meant that there- 
after that side would push its measures with greater vigor and 
under better auspices. 

MONROE DOCTRINE.— It will be i-emembered that Clay 
in the Fifteenth Congress had proposed as a Foreign Policy the 
recognition of the South American Republics, then in a state of 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 495 

revolt from Spain. The President in his message to the present 
Congress dwelt largely on this question of recognition, and 
formulated what has ever since been accepted as "the Monroe 
Doctrine." It announced the principle of (i) *' No interference in 
wars of European powers in matters relating to themselves." (2) 
Defense of our own political system against any attempt of foreign 
powers to establish theirs in any part of this hemisphere. (3) 
No interference with existing foreign colonies. (4) Interference 
by foreign powers with colonial dependencies that have declared 
and maintained their independence, and been recognized by this 
government, to be regarded as an unfriendly disposition toward 
the United States. (5) " It is the true policy of the government 
to leave the parties (Spain and the revolting Republics) to them- 
selves, in the hope that other powers will do the same," this, 
since "Spain cannot subdue them," and since, if left alone, they 
would never voluntarily adopt a foreign political system. 

TARIFF OF 1824. — In the same message Monroe inclined 
to the popular side on matters of Protection and Internal Im- 
provement. He was a good President in that he was observant 
of situations and respected majority wishes. Two months were 
consumed in heated debate on this measure, which, while the 
rates on leading articles were not as high as under the act of 
1 812, involved more directly the principle of protection to 
American manufactures, by preventing the competition of the 
cheaper manufactures of Europe, than any preceding act. Lines 
were drawn closely between the liberal and strict schools of 
interpreters of the Constitution, and, strange to say, these lines 
now showed quite a solid array of Southern States * against as 
solid an array of Northern States. The former supplemented 
their old argument against the Constitutionality of the Protective 
idea, by the new ones that it was unjust to them, and, moreover, 
sectional in spirit. Thus early they projected into the conten- 
tion the thought that legislative protection to manufacturing in- 
dustry was legislative hardship to planting industry, and that en- 
couragement of free paid labor was discouragement of slave 
unpaid labor. The bill passed by a close vote, a few of its 

■'^Clay's own State Kentucky, was for the bill. 



496 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ablest opponents, as Webster, coming from the New England 
States. These, however, chiefly contested the propriety of 
high protective duties and not the Constitutional right to impose 
them, denying that the distress of the country was as great as 
described by the friends of the bill, and doubting if any legisla- 
tion could be made to stimulate industry and manufacturing 
enterprise. The bill was approved by the President and 
thoroughly engrafted *' The American System " in our national 
politics. The duties on leading articles were : Sugar, 3 cents 
per pound; coffee, 5 cents per pound; tea, 25 cents per pound; 
salt (bulk), 20 cents per pound; pig iron, 20 per cent. ; bar iron, 
$;^o per ton ; manufactures of glass, 30 per cent, and 3 cents per 
pound ; manufactures of cotton, 25 per cent. ; manufactures of 
woollens, 30 per cent. ; silk, 25 per cent It was followed by 
another bill involving the same liberal views, which provided for 
surveys of routes upon which to base a system of national 
canals. Congress adjourned, May 27, 1824. 

ELECT/ON OF 1824.— In the last Presidential election the 
Republican party had no opposition, but it had a head. Now 
it furnished its own opposition, being without a head. The 
contest began during the session of the previous Congress by 
bids for popular favor, expediency measures and votes, and out- 
lines for a future which would be less gloomy than the then 
present. 

An attempt to revive the obsolete Congressional caucus 
nominations, in the interest of Wm. H. Crawford, Ga., failed. 
A Constitutional amendment had been mooted to choose electors 
by popular vote. The campaign became historic as." the scrub 
race for the Presidency." The liberal school of Republicans sup- 
ported Henry Clay, Ky., and John Quincy Adams. The strict 
school supported Wm. H. Crawford, Ga., and Andrew Jackson, 
Tenn. John C. Calhoun, S. C, had a general support for the 
Vice-Presidency and was elected. None of the candidates for 
the Presidency received a majority of "the whole number" of 
electoral votes, though Jackson had the most. The election 
therefore went into the House ot Representatives. 

EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 



glllllHIinilllllHlllllllllllllllllllllllHlllllllllilllllH^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 




aiiiTiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 

PRESIDENTS FROM 1817 TO 1841. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 497 

6, 1824. This session saw the disruption of the RepubHcan 
party, and the dawn of the Whig party. Its only poHtical work 
was the counting of the electoral vote and the subsequent 
election of a President. The count showed 99 for Jackson; 84 
for John Quincy Adams ; 41 for Wm. H. Crawford ; 37 for Henry 
Clay. For Vice-President, Calhoun had 182 votes, as against yS 
scattering. He was, therefore, declared Vice-President. In the 
contest over the Presidency in the House, Clay, who was out of 
the fight,* threw his strength, or as much of it as he could con- 
trol, to Adams, which gave him 13 States, as against 7 for Jack- 
son and 4 for Crawford. Though the election of Adams was 
perfectly regular and constitutional, it forced the liberal and 
strict schools of interpreters wide apart, and the latter, carrying 
their fight to the country in the shape of a rebuke to those Rep- 
resentatives who had slaughtered Jackson, soon had the vantage 
ground. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1825. The 
President and Vice-President elect were sworn into office, March 
4, 1825. 



JOHN Q. ADAMS' ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1825 — March 3, 1829. 

John Quincy Adams, Mass., President. John C. Calhoun, 
S. C, Vice-President, 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Nineteenth Congress. I '' December 5, 1825-May 22, 1826. 
( 2, December 4, 1826-March 3, 1827. 

TWENTIETH Congress. | l' December 3, 1827-May 26, 1828. 
(2, December i, 1828-March 3, 1829. 

* In such contests the three candidates having the highest number of votes are 
Uie only candidates before the House, and in voting each State shall have only one 
vote. Twelfth Amendment to Constitution. 

32 



498 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 

States. 40,000. Votes. 

Alabama 3 5 

Connecticut 6 8 

Delaware I 3 

Georgia 7 9 

Illinois I 3 

Indiana 3 5 

Kentucky 12 14 

Louisiana .3 5 

Maine 7 9 

Maryland 9 ii 

Massachusetts .... 13 15 

Mississippi i 3 

Missouri i 3 

New Hampshire. . 6 8 

New Jersey 6 8 

New York 34 36 

North Carolina.. ..13 15 

Ohio 14 16 

Pennsylvania 26 28 

Rhode Island. ... 2 4 

South Carolina.... 9 II 

Tennessee 9 11 

Vermont 5 7 

Virginia 22 24 

Totals 213 261 



A. Jack- 
son, 
Tenn. 



I 
15 

28 

II 
II 



Republicans. 



President. 
Q. Ad- W.H. 



ams, 
Mass. 



2 
9 

3 
15 



Crawford, 
Ga. 



H. Clay, 
Ky, 



26 



99 



84 



24 
41 



14 



16 



Vice-President. 
J. C. N. San- 
Calhoun, ford, 
S.C. N. Y. 

5 

sc 
I so 

sc 
3 
5 
7 
5 
9 
10 

15 

3 

7 

8 
29 
15 

28 

3 
II 
II 

7 



yi 



182 



so 



16 



THE CABINET 

Secretary of State Henry Clay, Ky. 

Secretary of Treasury. ..Richard Rush, Pa. 

Secretary of War James Barbour, Va. 

Secretary of Navy S. L. Southard, N. J. 

Attorney-General William Wirt, Va.. . . 

Postmaster-General John McLean, Ohio. 



, Continued. 



NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY.— T\{\s party, fore- 
shadowed for some time, was now ready for a name. The divi- 
sion in the RepubHcan ranks, encouraged by the free play of 



* There was one vacancy. The scattering votes were, N. Macon, 24; A. Jackson, 
13 ; Martin Van Buren, 9 ; Henry Clay, 2. At this election the popular vote began to 
be considered, for a great many States had abandoned the plan of choosing electors 
by their Legislatures, and a majority of them were about to do so. South Carolina 
adhered to the plan till 1868. The popular vote at this election was Andrew 
Jackson, 155,872, 10 States; John Q. Adams, 105,321,8 States; Wm. H. Craw- 
ford, 44,282, 3 States ; Henry Clay, 46,587, 3 States. Contest finally decided in 
the House. See p. 497. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 499 

sentiment during " The era of good feeling," and facilitated by 
the efforts of leaders of both schools of construction to impart 
their personalism to a following, now became a permanent 
breach. Adams entered on his administration with the Crawford 
supporters, who were the straightest sect of rigid interpreters, 
against him. His success had also set the Jackson following 
against him. They differed from the Crawford supporters only 
in the respect that they went with Jackson in his Federal and 
Protective Tariff ideas. But they could now unite forces and 
stand squarely against the administration. Clay's strength, 
which had gone to Adams' support in the House and helped to 
elect him President, naturally favored the administration. But 
Adams had made Clay his Secretary of State, a position then 
much courted as inviting to the Presidency. This gave the now 
united and embittered opposition a chance to charge collusion 
between Adams and Clay. Crimination and recrimination fol- 
lowed. Both sides became more compact and determined. 
Besides the sharp personalities involved, the President, in his 
inaugural and in his first message to Congress, had mapped a 
set of principles which, as to Protection, Internal Improvement, 
and liberality of Constitutional Construction in general, would 
answer as a bond of agreement for his own followers and those 
of Clay. Thus solidified, they set out as National Republicans 
(though known in the campaign of 1828 as Adams' men), a 
name excellently chosen, for as Republicans, yet as liberal or 
national interpreters of the Constitution, the title was accurate 
and full of meaning. But by a fatality not unusual with party 
titles, the name did not stick for many years, being pushed aside 
to make room for the meaningless title of Whig. 

DEMOCRATIC PARTY.— The Crawford and Jackson fol- 
lowing were united only in their opposition to Adams' adminis- 
tration and to the new National Republican party. Crawford 
was sick and could not look out for his own Presidential chances. 
Jackson forced the situation, got a nomination three years in 
advance (October, 1825) from the Legislature of Tennessee, and 
thus became a centre about which all opposition to the adminis- 
tration could cluster. While Jackson's personalism was neces- 



500 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sary to attract the Crawford support and cement the alHance, 
his followers were (in the campaign of 1828) *' Jackson men." 
Thus, claiming to adhere more closely to the old Republican 
traditions than either Adams or Clay, they were more unmindful 
of the old Republican name, having dropped it altogether. But 
when it became necessary to get away from Jackson's personal ism 
and give the party a national status, the name Democrat * was 
popularly and officially assumed. It was an easy transition to 
this title. Men like Calhoun and others, who never liked the 
name Republican, had all along preferred to be designated as 
Democrats. It was, therefore, not new ; had been, in fact, a part 
of the Republican title, and was a titular revival, rather than in- 
vention. Thus went out of existence the distinctive Republican 
party and Republican name, though the Democrats claimed to 
perpetuate its principles, in a rigid construction of the Constitu- 
tion. Yet even in this they too were, for a time at least, divided, 
for the extreme Southern, or State rights wing, sometimes called 
the Crawford faction, held to the doctrine of the Kentucky reso- 
lutions of 1799, which, we have seen, squarely broached the right 
to nullify objectionable Federal laws. A test of their doctrine 
was soon to be made under the lead of Calhoun. 

NINETEENTH CONGRESS— First Session.— Met Dec. 5, 
1825, with a bare majority of liberal Republicans, who organized 
by electing John W. Taylor, N. Y., Speaker. The Senate had a 
majority of administration members, but Calhoun so arranged 
the committees as to enable the opposition to obstruct, or defeat 
nearly every political measure known to be favored by the Pres- 
ident. This led the majority on the floor to retaliate by. taking 
the power of appointing committees away from the presiding 
officer, temporarily. The opposition was so strong and defiant 

* The present Democratic party began to take its name in 1831, and became fully 
recognized in 1832-33. I have before me papers of both the National Republican 
and Jackson parties in 183 1. One called the " Republican " had the ticket headed 
" Democrat- Republican candidate for President in 1832, Andrew Jackson." On 
the other side in 183 1, the papers were headed, " National Republican candidate 
for President in 1832, Henry Clay." I was myself the secretary of a National 
Republican club in 1832, and have the minutes now before me." — Reminiscences 
of an old Whig. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 501 

that no measures of moment passed the Congress, except those 
relating to appropriations. But a great many important bills 
were debated, among which was one to amend the Constitution, 
so as to permit the people to vote directly for the President ; a 
" Tenure of Office Bill," compelling the President to lay before 
the Senate his reasons for making removals from office ; another 
to so amend the Constitution as to prevent any member of the 
Congress from accepting a Federal office during his term ; and 
lastly a bill which proposed a Congress of American States to 
agree on a plan to prevent future European colonies and armed 
influence in the country. This last became notable, as drawing 
from the President, who had been a member of Monroe's cabinet, 
a reiteration of " The Monroe Doctrine," and a limitation of it, 
as Monroe's own idea, to our own border. His idea also being, 
that interference with nations on our own continent or hemis- 
phere, even to protect them, would be unjustifiable, except under 
the provisions designed to be agreed upon by some such tribunal 
as the proposed Congress of American States. Congress ad- 
journed May 22, 1826. 

NINETEENTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Dec. 
4, 1826. The two parties — National Republican and Demo- 
cratic — still squarely faced each other, both nearly equally 
strong, both voting down the measures of the other, among 
which was one to increase the Tariff, and another which de- 
serves attention as the first effort to divide a part of the national 
revenue among the States.* Congress adjourned sine die, March 
3, 1827. 

TWENTIETH CONGRESS— Y\r?X Session.— Met Dec. 3, 
1827. Organized by electing Andrew Stevenson, Va., a Demo- 
crat, Speaker. This was a curiously constituted Congress. It 
was Democratic. What may be called the Adams and Jackson 
issues — they were scarcely Administration and Anti-Administra- 
tion, nor yet National Republican (or Whig) and Democratic — 

■^ This was afterwards done during Jackson's administration. The same question 
of a di-vision of the surplus revenue among the States is now attracting wide atten- 
tion. The policy of doing it was announced in the Pennsylvania Republican 
platform of 1882. 



502 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

had been carried to the country. The Democrats carried every 
Southern State except Louisiana. They were no less fortunate, 
owing to Jackson's Protective Tariff record, in New York, Penn- 
sylvania '" and Illinois. Thus while they secured a majority in 
the Congress, it was united only for general party purposes. On 
the matter of a Protective Tariff it was divided, and enough 
Democrats from Northern States supported the National Re- 
publicans to bring about the celebrated Tariff Act of May 19, 
1828. 

TARIFF OF 1828. — This act had nothing peculiar about it, 
except that it increased the duty on manufactures of wool, and 
some other manufactures, to what was deemed a protective ex- 
tent. But its importance was due to the fact (i) that it was de- 
signed to emphasize the "American system," and influence the 
approaching Presidential election. (2) To the fact that it was a 
turning-point of the hitherto hostile New England sentiment, 
Webster having changed ground and entered upon its advocacy. 
(3) To the fact that opposition to it was more than ever sec- 
tional, the South regarding it as robbery of the many for the 
benefit of the few, as a blow at the planting interests, as a dis- 
crimination against unpaid labor, and as unconstitutional. (4) 
To the fact that it became the basis of that partisan hostihty 
which rapidly culminated in nullification. 

The session was prolific of party debates, but barren of results, 
other than those indirect ones which were designed to work to 
the benefit or detriment of prospective candidates for the Presi- 
dency. Congress adjourned, May 26, 1828. 

FLECTION OF 1S2S. — The common consent candidates of 
the respective parties were Adams and Jackson. No others were 
possible, for really these had had the field for four years. The 
great point with Adams, or the National Republicans, was to so 
emphasize the Protective Tariff and Internal Improvement ideas 
of the administration as to take away from Jackson whatever 
strength his Tariff record gave him. With Jackson the contest 

* A Convention of Protectionists, of national import, had been held at Harrisburg, 
Pa., in July, 1827, which took the ground that the country needed greater protection 
than the act of 1824 gave. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 503 

was altogether different. He considered himself aggrieved by 
the result of the previous election, and his campaign was con- 
ducted — in the Democratic name — so as to vindicate the prin- 
ciple of choice by the popular vote, in other words the Demo- 
cratic principle. A misfortune of the situation was that the 
entire candidacy was sectional, for John C. Calhoun, S. C, was 
running as Vice-President with Andrew Jackson, Tenn., and 
Richard Rush, Pa., as Vice-President with John Quincy Adams, 
Mass. The result would reach further than simple party differ- 
ences warranted. At the election in November the Democrats 
triumphed. 

TWENTIETH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met Ded. 
I, 1828, with its former Democratic majority in both Houses, 
the doubtful members in the Senate having swung to the Anti- 
Administration side, or, which is the same, to the side of the in- 
coming administration. No measures were mooted likely to 
hamper the new administration, though one, accepting the lib- 
eral theory of Internal Improvement, and making large appro- 
priation therefor, went through, after provoking the then stereo- 
typed debates as to its constitutionality. The electoral count in 
February showed 178 votes for Jackson and 83 for Adams, for 
President, and 171 for Calhoun, and 83 for Rush, for Vice-Presi- 
dent. Congress Sidjourned si7ie die, March 3, 1829. The candi- 
dates elect were sworn into office March 4, 1829. 

XL 

JACKSON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1829 — March 3, 1833. 

Andrew Jackson, Tenn., President. John C. Calhoun, S. C, 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

^ CoNPRESS / ^' December 7, 1829-May 31, 1830. 

IWENTY-FIRST (.ONGRESS. | ^^ December 6, 1830-March 3, 1831. 

Twenty sfcond Concress / ^' December 5, 1831-July 16, 1832. 
IWENTY-SECOND CONGRESS. | ^^ December 3, 1832-March 3, 1833. 



504 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Democrat. 



National Republican, 



Basis of 
States. 40,000. 

Alabama 3 

Connecticut 6 

Delaware I 

Georgia 7 

Illinois I 

Indiana 3 

Kentucky 12 

Louisiana 3 

Maine 7 

Maryland 9 

Massachusetts .... 13 

Mississippi i 

Missouri 

New Hampshire 
New Jersey. , .. 

New York 

North Carolina.. 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 26 

Rhode Island. ... 2 
South Carolina.. ,. 9 

Tennessee 9 

Vermont 5 

Virginia 22 

Totals 213 

CABINET 



J. C. Cal-J. Q. Adams, 
Votes, son, Tenn. houn, S. 



5 
8 

3 
9 
3 
5 

14 
5 
9 

II 

15 

3 
3 



36 
15 
16 

28 

4 
II 
II 

7 

24 
261 



And. Jack- 
Tei 

5 



9 
3 
5 
14 
5 



20 

15 

i6 
28 



24 
178 



2 
3 

5 

14 

5 



20 

^5 
16 

28 

II 

II 

24 
171 



Mass. 

8 
3 



R. Rush, 
Pa. 



7 for S. C. Smith. 



8 

6 

15 



83 



Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, N. Y. 

Secretary of Treasury Samuel D. Ingham, Pa. 

Secretary of War John H. Eaton, Tenn, 

Secretary of Navy John Branch, N. C. 

Attorney-General John M, Berrien, Ga, 

Postmaster-General Wm, T, Barry, Ky. 

NEW ADMINISTRATION— Th\s first Democratic admin- 
istration opened amid storm and invited storm. It had to 
confront the fact that the extreme Democrats of the South (the 
Crawford following) were not heartily with it, but that their 
drift was toward Vice-President Calhoun, as their leader, who 
was now among the most rigid masters in the school of strict 
interpreters and a pronounced champion of the Kentucky reso- 
lutions of 1799. Indeed, both Georgia and South Carolina had 
already assumed, through their Legislatures, to notify the Presi- 
dent and the country that they declared null and void any act 



* Popular vote — ^Jackson, 647,231 ; States, 15 ; Adams, 509,097; States, 9. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 505 

of Congress (the really objectionable act was the tariff of 1828) 
which they as States adjudged unconstitutional. 

In his first message, Jackson took high ground against a re- 
charter of the National Bank, though the charter of 18 16 did 
not expire till 1836, regarded its usefulness as in every way 
past, argued that it was Anti-Democratic and despotic, and held 
the law authorizing it unconstitutional. He also swung quite to 
the side of those who opposed Protection and Internal Improve- 
ment. This alienated from him very many Democrats who were 
of sufficiently liberal turn to favor all these measures. How- 
ever, this did not last very long, for circumstances soon com- 
pelled him to change front on Tariff and Internal Improvement 
measures, and to at least see that all such as had assumed the 
shape of law were duly enforced. His hostility to the bank, 
however, continued. He gave his opposition a decidedly politi- 
cal turn. Its destruction was the result. 

Nor was the foreign outlook assuring. France was urging a 
settlement of her spoliation claims, even to the extent of threat- 
ening war, and England was clamorous and angry about the 
Maine boundary. To cap all, a new party, known as the Anti- 
Masonic, had risen in New York, which became a bidder for 
national distinction, and which, in its fervor, threatened to de- 
moralize existing political forces.* Amid all these complica- 
tions and antagonisms a President of ordinary nerve would have 
failed. But it seemed to be the kind of political atmosphere 
which Jackson liked to breathe. He was fortunate in the 
respect that there could be no hearty and effective combination 
of opposing elements, and equally fortunate in the sympathy 
which naturally goes out toward one who is singly enlisted 
against overwhelming odds. His personalism infected his entire 
administration, and this, in his case, was not a misfortune, for 

* This organization, short-lived as it was, was peculiarly galling to such leaders 
as Clay and Jackson, who were both Masons. The furore which originated it came 
from the sudden, and as yet unaccounted for, disappearance of one Daniel Morgan, 
of Batavia, N. Y., who had written a book exposing the secrets of P>ee Masonry, 
in 1826. In 1832 it nominated a Presidential ticket, and then fell into rapid 
decline. 



506 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

he had been a military hero, was of undeniably honest, but blunt 
intention, and was quite on a level with the masses in brusque 
demeanor and every-day speech. 

VICTOR AND SPOILS.— T\i^ clouded and uncertain sur- 
roundings of the new administration were its justification for a 
general clearing out of all officials not in sympathy with it. 
This became the new doctrine of " Rotation in Office," or as it 
found popular expression from the lips of Senator Marcy, N. Y., 
the doctrine that " The spoils of the enemy belonged to the 
victor." * We have seen that Jefferson had given the hint for 
this doctrine, but that after applying it for the correction of 
certain errors on the part of his predecessor, had fallen back on 
the custom, which prevailed from the beginning till Jackson's 
time, of trusting to time to make vacancies and to the future 
supremacy of his party to fill them. Whether Jackson's excuse 
of self-defense were justified or not, his practice was accepted 
by all future parties, and prevailed without question, till called to 
account by Civil Service Reform. 

• TWENTY-FIRST CONGRESS— Yivst Session.— Met Dec. 
7, 1829, and organized by re-electing Andrew Stevenson, 
Va., Speaker, the Democrats being in a majority in both 
branches. Now the alienations already indicated began. 
The message, taking its high ground against the National 
Bank, which was allied with Protection and Internal Improve- 
ment, and proposing various things, among them a distribu- 
tion of the surplus revenue to the States,t which were either 
new or upon which an agreement was impossible, they were 

* " Another doctrine of Jackson was that he was ' responsible for the entire action 
of the Executive Department,' and, therefore, had the power to remove and appoint 
all officers at pleasure — a doctrine which, at a later day, during the administration 
of Andrew Johnson, Congress was compelled to legislate against. * Responsible ? ' 
said Mr. Webster, replying to Jackson's protest. * What does he mean by being 
responsible ? ' Does he mean legal responsibility ? Certainly not — no such thing. 
Legal responsibility signifies liability to punishment for misconduct or maladminis- 
tration. A Briareus sits in the centre of our system, and with his hundred hands 
touches e\ erything, moves everything, controls everything. I ask, sir, is this Re- 
publicanism? is this a government of laws? is this legal responsibility?" — Remin- 
iscences of an old Whig. 

f This afterwards came about. See p. 517; also p. 501 and note. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 507 

summarily dealt with by the committees to which they were 
respectively referred. Party lines were strictly drawn over the 
question of removing the Cherokee Indians of Georgia to the 
west of the Mississippi, the Legislature of that State having 
enacted to open their lands to settlers, contrary to existing 
treaties with the tribe. The National Republicans opposed the 
bill for removal. Though it passed, it was ineffective, the 
Indians refusing to part with their lands.* Several enactments 
looking to Internal Improvements were passed, some of which 
the President vetoed directly. Others he retained for the legal 
ten days, and Congress having in the meantime adjourned they 
thus failed to become law. This convenient way of vetoing 
a bill by indirection was frequently practised by the President, 
and got to be known as the ''Pocket Veto" method. 

The most notable event of the session was the introduction 
into the Senate, by Foot, Conn., of an apparently harmless 
resolution of inquiry into the matter of public lands, coupled 
with a proposition to stop surveys and limit sales. As the ef- 
fect of the proposition would have been to check migration and 
western settlement, it was opposed by western members, and 
gave rise to a five-month debate. This took the widest latitude. 
The imputation by Southern members that it had always been a 
New England policy to check western settlement, drew from 
Webster a reference to the ordinance of 1787 for the govern- 
ment of the territory northwest of the Ohio. As this ordinance 
prohibited slavery, the slave question came up, and was discussed 
in all its bearings, the debates being sectional, exhaustive and 
bitter. Hayne's allusion to the attitude of New England in the 
war of 1 81 2 brought from Webster a reference to the Kentucky 
nullifying resolutions of I799,t and to the recent action of 

* They were afterwards forcibly removed in defiance of a decision of the Supreme 
Court to the effect that the treaties between them and the United States were 
valid. 

■f Hayne quoted the Virginia resolutions of 1799, written by Madison, as justify- 
ing nullification. Webster defended Madison, and showed that such interpretation 
could not be put upon them. But this did not destroy Hayne's reliance on the 
Kentucky resolutions, written by Jefferson. We have taken the trouble to show 
that the doctrine of nullification was not in the Kentucky resolutions which Jeffer- 



508 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Georgia and South Carolina respecting the tariff of 1828. This 
brought up the whole question of nullification, Hayne voicing 
the well-known sentiments of Calhoun. And so it drifted from 
Southern grievance to New England Federalism, from State 
rights to Federal powers, from the government as a League to 
the government as a Nation, covering the entire field of 
national and constitutional history. Benton, though a par- 
ticipant, justly calls it " The Great Debate in the Senate." Con- 
gress adjourned. May 31, 1830. 

TWENTY-FIRST CONGRESS— "^^zoviA Session.— Met Dec. 
6, 1830. This Congress met at a time when the doctrine of 
Nullification was passing from peaceful resistance to Federal 
authority to open, violent resistance. It had shown its hand the 
preceding April, when at a dinner party in Washington the 
President had rebuked the Nullification sentiment which pre- 
vailed by the toast, " Our Federal Union ; it must and shall be 
preserved." Vice-President Calhoun immediately flung the 
counter-toast among the guests, " Liberty, dearer than Union." 
These led to enough to satisfy the President that he must be on 
his guard, and the Nullifiers that they could not carry him with 
them. As to his friends in Congress, especially those of liberal 
sentiment, he offended them, as before, by repeating in his mes- 
sage his opposition to the National Bank, and by going still 
further and opposing Internal Improvement, except under cer- 
tain limited conditions. This element went to the support of 
the National Republicans, and the result was such an emphatic 
verdict in favor of bills for improvement of harbors, rivers and 
roads, and for light-houses, that he relented his opposition and 
gave them executive approval. 

Before adjournment the President was made to feel the hatred 
of the Nullifiers toward him. Vice-President Calhoun came out 
in a pamphlet severely criticising his war record, especially as 
it related to the Seminole affair. This touched him in a very 
tender spot Angered beyond measure at its publication, smart- 
son drew, but was in those of the next year (1799), in the shape of an amend- 
ment to Jefferson's. Madison protested against Hayne's use of Jefferson's name in 
support of what he called the " colossal heresy of nullification." 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 509 

ing under the insinuation that all was not lovely among the 
families of his cabinet, and the further insinuation that he pre- 
ferred to be advised by hangers-on at the White House — a 
" Kitchen Cabinet," as they were called — he stormed as only 
"Old Hickory" could storm. His cabinet resigned in a body, 
and gave him opportunity to reorganize, which he did by mak- 
ing Edward Livingston, La., his Secretary of State, vice Van 
Buren ; Louis McLane, Del., Secretary of Treasury, vice Ing- 
ham ; Lewis Cass, Mich., Secretary of War, vice Eaton ; Levi 
Woodbury, N. H., Secretary of Navy, vice Branch ; Roger B, 
Taney, Md., Attorney-General, vice Berrien. Congress adjourned 
sine die J March 3, 1831. 

TWENTY-SECOND CONGRESS— Y\x?>t Session.— Met Dec. 
5, 1 83 1. The House organized by re-electing Andrew Steven- 
son Speaker. His majority in the former House was 93, in this 
it was I, The Senate was opposed to the Administration. The 
President forced his war on the United States Bank, and the 
Congress met him more than half way by an act reviving the 
charter, though the old one did not expire till 1836. He vetoed 
the bill, and the requisite two-thirds could not be mustered to 
pass it over the veto. From this time on he pursued the bank 
with Spartan persistency until he drove it out of existence. 

TARIFF OF 1832. — The process of getting ready for the 
Presidential campaign seemed to require, as it had done for sev- 
eral previous campaigns, a revision of the Tariff An act passed 
in May, 1830, had considerably scaled the rates of duty laid in 
the act of 1828, but not enough to destroy the Protective 
features of that act. The nullifying sentiment in the South must 
be appeased somehow. Another act was the remedy. It was 
the act of July 14, 1832, which reduced duties very considerably 
and placed coffee and tea on the free list. But it failed to effect 
its purpose, for as yet there had been no official or legal repu- 
diation of the Protective idea. Bills making liberal appropria- 
tions for Internal Improvement were also passed and signed ; 
some, however, received the adroit pocket veto. 

The split between the President and Vice-President was'wid- 
ened by the refusal of the latter to confirm by his casting vote 



510 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in the Senate the appointment of Van Buren as Minister to Eng- 
land. This spiteful proceeding reacted on Calhoun in the shape 
of the nomination of Van Buren for the Vice-Presidency. Con- 
gress adjourned, July i6, 1832. 

ELECTION OF 1832.-— This contest is noteworthy as the 
first in which all the parties made their nominations through 
national conventions, and two of them a proclamation of prin- 
ciples through what are now known as party platforms. The 
Anti-Masons took the field as early as September, 183 1, at Bal- 
timore, by nominating for President William Wirt, Va. ; for 
Vice-President, Amos Ellmaker, Pa. Their principles were in- 
volved in their formal call of a convention as " opposition to 
secret societies." 

The National Republicans followed in December, 1831, at 
Baltimore. They nominated for President, Henry Clay, Ky. ; for 
Vice-President, John Sergeant, Pa. The address of the conven- 
tion to the people, or platform, defined the issues of the cam- 
paign as the tariff, internal improvement, the question of remov- 
ing the Cherokee Indians, and renewal of the United States 
Bank charter. 

The Democrats met, also at Baltimore, in March, 1832, and 
nominated for President, Andrew Jackson, Tenn. ; for Vice- 
President, Martin Van Buren, N. Y. The convention published 
no platform of principles.* 

Thus the respective parties entered the campaign. No part 
of the country felt as warmly toward Jackson as at his first 
election. The South was cold, and, in the case of South Caro- 
lina, defiant. The North, or wherever the influence of the 
United States Bank was strongest, was unsympathetic or pro- 
nouncedly against him. But there was "little coherency in the 

■^But at a ratification meeting, held in Washington, May II, 1832, a set of reso- 
lutions were adopted which favored internal improvement, denounced removals 
from office for opinion sake and contained the following on the tariff: ^^ Resolved, 
That an adequate protection to American industry is indispensable to the prosperity 
of the countiy, and that an abandonment of the policy at this period would be 
attended with consequences ruinous to the best interests of the nation." None of 
which was very good Jackson doctrine so far as his first administration was con- 
cerned. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 511 

Opposition, and the result of the election, in November, was de- 
cidedly in his favor. " The American System," which Clay's 
nomination had placed on trial before the country, and which the 
National Republicans had presented with all their eloquence and 
logic, was, for the time being, swamped by both the national 
verdict and that in the Congressional districts. South Carolina 
supported none of the nominees, but cast her vote for John 
Floyd, Va., and Henry Lee, Mass. 

NULLIFICATION.— ^o sooner had the Presidential election 
passed over than a South Carolina convention, at Columbus, 
Nov. 19, 1832, declared the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 ''null 
and void and not binding upon the State, her officers and 
citizens." It is difficult to understand this action at this time 
except upon the theory that it was a direct blow of Calhoun and 
his friends at Jackson, for since protection * had been made the 
distinguishing feature of the Presidential campaign, and had not 
been endorsed by the country, any reasonable opponents of the 
protective idea must have been satisfied.f Other circumstances 
may, however, have conspired to bring about the ordinance at 
this juncture. The sentiment of nullification had been ripening 
for some time. The State of Georgia had practically nullified 
the Cherokee Indian act by refusing to obey the decrees of the 
United States Supreme Court. The thought that coercion of a 
State by the Federal troops was possible did not prevail then, 

* The nullifiers, it must be remembered, claimed that a tariff act which involved 
the idea of protection was unconstitutionr-.l. This, ihey said, was the gravamen of 
the acts of 1828 and 1832. It is veiy probable, however, that they deemed the 
lime a fit one to test the position of a State in the Union. 

f " Jackson had pledged himself to a single term, and Calhoun had expected to 
be his successor. But by adroit use of resolutions in several of the State Legisla- 
tures in favor of a second term for Jackson, he concluded to run again. His 
quarrel with Calhoun now became a feud. Calhoun pressed his nullification idea, and 
Jackson resisted by the proclamation of force, Dec. 16, 1832. Clay, fearing war, 
introduced his "Compromise tariff bill," which passed March 2, 1833, under which 
duties were to be scaled at the rate of 10 per cent, annually till they reached a uni- 
form rate of 20 per cent. This they did in 1842. During this period the country 
reached universal bankruptcy in 1837, a sub-treasury law had to be passed to supply 
the place of the suspended State banks, a bankrupt law to relieve individuals, and 
the tariff act of 1842 to relieve the country." — Reminiscences of an old Whig. 



512 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

and the further thought that any such attempt at coercion would 
be resisted by the States through which such troops would be 
compelled to pass, did prevail in South Carolina. At any rate the 
ordinance passed, and it was backed up by resolutions to the 
effect that any appeal from it to the United States Supreme 
Court would be punishable as an offence, and that any attempt 
at force on the part of the general government would be followed 
by the secession of the State. 

This Ordinance, which went into effect Feb. I, 1833, placed the 
State in the attitude of forcible resistance to the laws of the 
United States. A certified copy of it reached the President in 
December, 1832, the Legislature of the State in the meantime 
passing laws taking back all those powers it had parted with to 
the central government, and rapidly placing it on a war footing. 
Soon after its receipt, the President, Dec. 16, 1832, issued his 
celebrated proclamation to the people of the State. It is im- 
portant as showing how the first overt nullification, and first 
direct attempt at secession, was met, and that by an executive 
who, though not of the extreme school of rigid interpreters of 
the Constitution, was yet sufficiently inclined that way to be the 
national representative of the then existing Democracy. The 
Proclamation (i) exhorted the people of South Carolina to obey 
the laws of Congress. (2) Pointed out the illegality of their 
procedure. (3) Showed that the general government was one 
in which the people of all the States were collectively repre- 
sented. (4) Affirmed that Representatives in Congress are 
Representatives of the United States and not of particular States, 
are paid by the United States and are not accountable to the 
State for their legitimate acts. (5) Concluded, therefore, that 
the government was not a League, but a government, whether 
formed by compact or in any other way ; that it operated on in- 
dividuals, not on States; that the States parted with enough of 
their powers to make a nation ; that the claim of a right to 
secede was not the mere withdrawing from a contract, but was 
destructive of the unity of a nation ; that it would be a solecism 
to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection 
with other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing an 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 5I3 

offence. (6) Expressed his determination to enforce the laws, 
even by a resort to force if necessary. 

Without recourse to Congress, then in session, but in the ex- 
ercise of the power he already possessed as executive, he threw 
a naval force into Charleston Harbor and proceeded to collect 
the duties under the Tariff of 1832. In January, however, he 
was forced to ask for legislation to aid him in the enforcement 
of the laws. A bill was consequently prepared in the Senate 
which was deemed adequate. Its provisions provoked intense 
hostility. Debate was long and acrimonious. Notwithstanding 
the fact that it was shown to contain no new feature, and had 
the support of such conservative-minded men as Webster, it was 
denounced as unconstitutional, as tending to civil war, as a 
'' Force Bill," as " the Bloody Bill," etc. It was a bill to enforce 
the Tariff Act of 1832. It passed, was signed by the President, 
and duly executed. South Carolina did not secede on account 
of it, and no State was injured by its passage and enforcement. 
All in all it was probably the best measure which could have 
been devised for the emergency. At any rate it made the Presi- 
dent master of the situation, and rampant nullification subsided. 
Soon after the opening of Congress in December Calhoun re- 
signed the Vice-Presidency and entered the Senate, where he 
took early occasion to say that his State had never intended to 
resist the government by force, and as an evidence of it he called 
attention to the fact that a recent meeting of nuUifiers had be^en 
held at which it was agreed that all thought of forcible resistance 
should be postponed till after the Congress had adjourned. 

TWENTY-SECOND CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met 
Dec. 3, 1832. The most important act was that spoken of in 
the preceding paragraph, except perhaps the compromise Tariff 
Act. This act, conceived by Clay in a spirit of compromise, met 
two requirements : (i) the verdict of the last Presidential election; 
(2) the wishes of those engaged in nullification, not fully, per- 
haps, but sufficiently to show that the friends of Protection were 
not necessarily the enemies of their opponents. Its weakness 
was that of all compromises. It was immediately heralded by 
the nullifiers as their vindication, and amid great rejoicing was 
33 



514 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

proclaimed as a surrender of " the American system " and a 
justification of the South Carolina status. It did not enact any- 
thing affirmatively, but taking the Tariff of 1832 as a basis, pro- 
ceeded to emasculate it by a dry rot repeal extending over a 
period of ten years (till 1842), during all which time there was 
to be a gradual biennial reduction of duties, till in the end no 
higher rate than 20 per cent, should survive. 

The President continued his war on the National Bank, but 
was headed off by its friends. The Public Land Question came 
up again in the shape of a bill to turn the proceeds of sales over 
to the States as a loan. A pocket veto settled its fate. 

The count of the electoral vote in February, 1833, revealed, 
for President, Jackson 219, Clay 49, Floyd 11, Wirt 7; for Vice- 
Pre'sident, Van Buren 189, Sergeant 49, Wilkins 30, Lee 11, Ell- 
maker 7. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1833. Jack- 
son and Van Buren were sworn into office March 4, 1833. 

xn. 

JACKSON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1833 — March 3, 1837. 

Andrew Jackson, Tenn., President. Martin Van Buren, N. Y., 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

_ ^ f I, December 2, 1833-Time 30, 1 834. 

Twenty-third Congress. | ^; December i, 1834-March 3, 1835. 

Twenty-fourth Congress. | ^; December 5', l83tMarch 3,^1837. 

ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 

Democrat. Nat. Republican. Anti-Mason. 



Basis of And. Jack- M. Van H. Clay, J. Ser- W. Wirt, Amos EU- 

States. 47,700. Vote, son, Tenn. Buren, N.Y. Ky. geant, Pa. Va. maker. Pa. 

Alabama 5 7 7 7 

Connecticut 6 8 . . . . 8 8 

Delaware I 3 ".. .. 3 3 

Georgia 9 II II 1 1 

Illinois 3 5 5 5 

Indiana 7 9 9 9 .. .. .. 

* There were two vacancies. The South Carolina vote went to John Floyd and 
Henry Lee. William Wilkins, Pa., got 30 of the scattering votes. The popular 
vote was: Andrew Jackson, 687,502; Henry Clay, 530,189; William Wirt, 33,108. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



515 



Electoral Vote — Continued. 



Democrat. 



Nat. Republican. Anti-Mason. 



Basis of 
States. 47j7oo- 

Kentucky 13 15 

Louisiana 3 5 

Maine 8 10 

Maryland 8 10 

Massachusetts 12 14 

Mississippi 2 4 

Missouri 2 4 

New Hampshire.. ..5 7 

New Jersey 6 8 

New York 40 42 

North Carolina. . .. 13 15 

Ohio 19 21 

Pennsylvania 28 30 

Rhode Island 2 4 

South Carolina ... 9 1 1 

Tennessee 13 15 

Vermont 5 7 

Virginia 21 23 

Totals... 240 288 

THE CABINET. 



And. Jack- M. Van H. Clay, J. Ser- 
Vote, son, Tenn. Buren.N.Y. Ky, gear.t. Pa 

..15 15 

5 5 

10 10 

3 3 5 5 



W. Wirt, 
Va 



, Amos Ell- 
maker, Pa. 



4 

4 

7 

8 

42 

15 
21 

30 



23 
219 



4 
4 
7 
8 
42 

15 
21 

sc. 

sc 

15 

_23 

[89 



49 



49 



Secretary of State Lewis McLane, Del. 

Secretary of Treasury William J. Duane, Pa. 

Secretary of War Lewis Cass, Mich Continued. 

Secretary of Navy Levi Woodbury, N. H " 

Attorney-General Roger B. Taney, Md " 

Postmaster-General William T. Barry, Ky " 

Jackson's Cabinets were very fluctuating. This one was ar- 
ranged, the better to carry on his war against the United States 
Bank. But Mr. Duane refused to obey his order to remove the 
deposits from the Bank on the plea that they were unsafe there, 
that they had been used for political purposes, or for any reason 
whatever. Nor would he resign his office. He on the contrary 
alleged that the President's action was unnecessary, arbitrary, 
and unjust. He was removed, and Roger B. Taney took his 
place. The deposits were then transferred to favorite State 
banks. The National Bank, thus left without bankable resource, 
began to call in its loans and wind up business, in the midst of 
great financial embarrassment and commercial distress. 

TWENTY-THIRD CONGRESS— First Session.— Met Dec. 
2, 1833. Organized by re-electing Andrew Stevenson, Speaker, 
by a majority of 81. The war on the Bank culminated during 



516 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

this session. Enough Democratic Senators united with the 
National Republicans to censure the President for his removal 
of the Bank deposits. This was tabled in the House, which 
then committed itself by a resolution not to vote for a re-charter 
of the Bank. Thus the President carried his position by indirec- 
tion, and the tedious, bitter, demoralizing, and, so far as Jackson 
was concerned, personal, struggle ended. Even the commercial 
and industrial hardship entailed by the loss of so powerful a 
financial agent was quoted as an evidence of the truth of the 
President's charges against it.* 

The Post-office Department, which had been conducted under 
the Treasury Department until 1829, and then set apart as dis- 
tinct, came up for investigation. As this was an administration 
measure, the Department was declared by a House investigating 
committee to be corrupt, and a bill for its reorganization passed. 

The President and Senate were in a perpetual snarl. The 
latter rejected his pet nominations, among them that of Taney 
for the Treasury, and Stevenson, the Speaker, as Minister to Eng- 
land. It also attempted to limit his political removals and ap- 
pointments, by a species of Tenure of Office bill. Congress 
adjourned June 30, 1834. 

TWENTY-THIRD CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met 
Dec. I, 1834. This session was mainly devoted to finance. The 
deposit of public moneys in the State banks was giving rise to 
trouble. As a system it was inconvenient and dangerous, though 
tenaciously adhered to by the Democrats. Its opponents pro- 
posed as a substitute a system of Sub-Treasuries at various busi- 
ness centres, through whose agents the Treasurer might act 
safely and promptly. This the Democrats voted down, only, 
however, to fall in with and adopt it at a later date, as their best 
weapon with which to fight those who favored re-chartering a 
National Bank. Slight encouragement was given the system of 

* It is perhaps needless to say that the leading Democratic opponents of the Bank, 
such as Benton, rested their case on a denial of the right of the government to 
make anything money except gold and silver. They rigidly interpreted the coinage 
clause of the Constitution, and popularized the idea that Democrats then constituted 
" the hard money party." 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 5I7 

Internal Improvements, by an appropriation therefor. Congress 
adjourned sine die, March 3, 1835. 

TWENTY-FO UR TH CONGRESS— ¥\r^\i Session.— Met 
Dec. 7, 1835. Organized by electing James K. Polk, Tenn., as 
Speaker. Neither branch was a happy body. An amalgamated 
opposition to the Democrats controlled the Senate, and the 
Democratic majority in the House was divided into two factions, 
one administration, anxious to advance Van B.uren's chances for 
the Presidency, the other anti-administration, anxious to advance 
those of Hugh L. White, Tenn. Fortunately no measures of 
party moment arose. The leading act of the session was one 
which passed in pursuance of the President's announcement in 
his message that the public debt would soon be paid, and his 
advice that some method of disposing of the surplus revenue 
should be provided. It is of moment now, in view of the fact 
that a similar proposition is being mooted, and bids fair to 
become a party issue. 

SURPLUS REVENUE.— C\3.ys previous plan to distribute 
the surplus arising from the sale of public lands among the 
States was premature, because the government had need of the 
money. Now, the extinguishment of the public debt made a 
similar plan more timely. But how to get at it was a grave 
question. Every way seemed unsatisfactory till a plan of regu- 
lating the deposit of public moneys in the State banks was hit 
upon. Deposits had hitherto been made in the " pet banks," 
Now the surplus revenue was to be divided in proportion to the 
population of each State, and the share of each, as thus ascer- 
tained, was to be deposited in its designated State bank or 
banks, for the use of the State, the same to be regarded as in 
the nature of a loan for whose return, when called on, the State 
stood as a pledge. This ingenious act passed both Houses in 
June, 1836, to take effect Jan. i, 1837. It applied to all surplus 
above ;^5,ooo,ooo, and under it $26,101,6^ were distributed. It 
ceased to operate in less than a year, by act of Congress, owing 
to hard times. The Distribution bill was signed by the Presi- 
dent reluctantly. The promised benefit to the States did not 
accrue, nor did those who favored it with the hope of advancing 



518 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

their Presidential chances reap the harvest they expected. The 
panic of 1837 burst upon the country all the same, and the Dem- 
ocratic party suffered defeat in 1840. Arkansas became a State 
June 15, 1836. Congress adjourned July 4, 1836. 

PANIC OF 1837.— The destruction of the United States 
Bank, the scaling of duties under the Tariff Act of 1833, the mul- 
tiplication of State banks and introduction of their variable and 
doubtful notes, made the financial situation uncertain, distressed 
business, and tended directly toward panic. This was precipi- 
tated by an order of the President, issued through his Secretary 
of Treasury (July, 1836), to the effect that the Treasury should 
cease to take State bank notes in payment for Public Lands, but 
should, in the future, take only gold and silver. From a Treasury 
standpoint this was justifiable, for the notes of the State banks 
had been piling up in the Treasury Department in great quan- 
tities. But as such a result had been invited by the destruction 
of the National Bank, with its uniform and stable currency, it 
looked as if the President were recoiling from it. His specie 
order speedily swamped the State banks, except the *' pet " ones, 
which were banks designated to receive the national deposits, 
by creating a demand for gold and silver they could not meet. 
The panic broke on the country the next year, and the direst 
distress prevailed in every department of business. 

ELECTION OF 1836. — This contest opened early by the 
nomination (1834-35) of H. L. White, Tenn., by the Legislature 
of Alabama. This was to head off Jackson, who sought the 
nomination of Van Buren. The White faction was the rest, 
residue and remainder of the old Crawford faction, members of 
the extreme school of rigid interpreters, strict State-rights men, 
former nullifiers, unyielding opponents of Jackson. But the Van 
Buren forces were not to be demoralized in this way. The era 
of caucus and legislative nomination had passed. A popular 
convention met in Baltimore in May, 1835, and placed Martin 
Van Buren, N. Y., in nomination for President, with Richard M. 
Johnson, Ky., for Vice-President. This was called a " Loco^ 
Foco " convention, the term having come into popular use the 
previous winter in New York as a set-off to the term " Whig," 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 519 

which was at the same time applied to the National Republican 
party. The " Loco-Focos " promulgated a platform, the impor- 
tant plank in which was adherence to gold and silver as the only- 
proper circulating medium. 

The Whigs, Anti-Masons, " and all opposed to " Van Buren, 
united on William Henry Harrison, Ohio, for President, and 
Francis Granger, N. Y., for Vice-President, who had been the 
declared nominees of a State convention held in Pennsylvania 

(1835). - _ , , _ 

To the Alabama nomination of H. L. White for President had 
been added that of John Tyler, Va., for Vice-President. 

Feeling that the election could be thrown into the House, 
where the Democratic division would insure the choice of an 
opposition candidate, Ohio placed John McLean in nomination 
for the Presidency, and Massachusetts,- Daniel Webster. 

Thus shaped, the election took place in November, 1836, and 
resulted in a majority of Van Buren electors. 

TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS—Sccond Session.— Met 
Dec. 5, 1836. This session was not notable for bills passed, 
but is memorable for the attempt made by the Southern mem- 
bers to recover the territory west of the Sabine (Texas), which 
had been lost at the time of the Florida purchase (18 19). Con- 
trary to the advice contained in the President's message, against 
interference between Mexico and the Republic of Texas (Texas 
had seceded from the Mexican Republic and set up for herself), 
the Senate passed a bill recognizing Texan independence, which 
the House rejected. 

A NEW POLITICAL FORCE.— It is further memorable 
as directly recognizing a new political force which had been incor- 
porated in 1833 as the National Anti-Slavery Society, which had 
been working quietly and suasively by means of lectures, tracts 
and newspapers, and which, in its preference of abroad humanity 
for narrow code, had given offence to the South by technical 
violations of the existing regulations respecting the return of 
fugitives. The mob violence which had been resorted to in 
several Northern cities for the purpose of breaking up the 
sources of abolition literature having failed, and there being an 



520 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

alarming increase of the same in the South, the President 
advised Congress to pass a bill construing such literature as 
incendiary and prohibiting its carriage by the United States 
mails. The times were not yet ripe for this summary method, 
and the bill was rejected. 

THE ELECTORAL (fO^iVr.— Michigan was admitted as a 
State, Jan. 26, 1837. The electoral count in February resulted 
in 170 for Van Buren; Ji for Harrison; 26 for White; 14 for 
Webster; and ii for W. P. Mangum, N. C, for President; and 
for Vice-President, 147 for Johnson; JJ for Granger; 47 for 
Tyler ; and 23 for William Smith, Ala. There being no choice 
for Vice-President, the House elected Richard M. Johnson, Ky. 
Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1837, and on March 4 
Van Buren and Johnson were sworn into office. 

Jackson signalized his retiracy by a farewell address, after the 
manner of Washington, in which he vindicated his administrative 
career, and congratulated the country on its peace, prosperity, 
and full triumph of the Democratic principles and party. His 
own peace of mind had been exalted by the passage of a resolu- 
tion, March 16, 1837, expunging the Clay resolution censuring 
his conduct in the removal of the public moneys from the 
National Bank. 

XIII. 

VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. ' 

March 4, 1837 — March 3, 1841. 

Martin Van Buren, N. Y., President. Richard M. John- 
son, Ky., Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

{I, September 4, 1837-October 16, 1837, extra session. 
2, December 4, 1837-Tuly 9, 1838. 
3, December 3, 1838-March 3, 1839. 

^ „ f I, December 2, 1839-Tuly 21, 1840. 

Twenty-sixth Congress, j ^j December i 1840-March 3. 1841. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



521 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 
States. 47,700- 

Alabama 5 

Arkansas I 

Connecticut ...... 6 

Delaware I 

Georgia 9 

Illinois 3 

Indiana 7 

Kentucky 13 

Louisiana 3 

Maine 8 

Maryland 8 

Massachusetts 12 

Michigan I 

Mississippi 2 

Missouri 2 

New Hampshire. ... 5 

New Jersey 6 

New York 40 

Norih Carolina. ... 13 

Ohio 19 

Pennsylvania 28 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina 9 

Tennessee 13 

Vermont 5 

Virginia 21 

Totals 242 



Votes. 
7 
3 
8 

3 
II 

5 

9 
15 

5 
10 
10 
14 

3 

4 

4 

7 

8 
42 

15 

21 

30 
4 

15 

7 

294 



Democrat. 



M. Van Bu-R.M.John- 
ren, N. Y. son, Ky. 



4 

3 

8 

7 
4 
5 

sc. 
xo 



4 
4 
7 

42 
15 



23 
170 



4 
3 
8 

7 
4 
5 

sc. 
10 



4 
4 
7 

42 
15 

30 

4 

sc. 



Whig. 



W. H 



Harri- 
Ohio. 



10 



F. Granger, 

N. Y. 



14 



IS 

7 
sc. 



147 



73 



77 



THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State John Forsyth, Ga Continued. 

Secretary of Treasury. . . . Levi Woodbury, N. H . . . . ♦' 

Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett, S. C. 

Secretary of Navy Mahlon Dickerson, N. J.. .Continued. 

Attorney-General Benjamin Y . Butler, N. Y... " 

Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, Ky ** 

THE INAUGURAL.— \[2in^mQVis inaugural teemed with 
faith in his predecessor and promises to abide by his policy. 
It congratulated the country on its prosperity and peace, and 
laid down as his chart the doctrines of the Democratic party. 
This commitment was untimely. It made him the executor of 



* Webster got the 14 votes of Massachusetts ; Mangum the 1 1 votes of St)uth 
Carolina ; White 26 votes from various Southern States. For Vice-President, John 
Tyler got 47 and William Smith 23. The popular vote was, Van Buren, 761,549, 
15 States; Harrison, 7 States; White, 2 States; Webster, i State; Mangum, i 
State — 236,656 votes. 



522 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the wreck invited by a financial policy which would have in time 
carried even Jackson down. The State banks had flooded the 
country with a " wild-cat " currency. Values were inflated and 
speculation rife. The President's (Jackson's) order to take noth- 
ing but gold and silver in payment for public lands had by this 
time resulted in a heavy gold premium, and the impossibility of 
getting specie at all by the weaker banks. The folly of the law 
ordering the distribution of the surplus among the States was 
now apparent, for the surplus was in the keeping of the " pet 
banks," and they could not respond to the order to pay money 
over to the States which they had loaned out and could not 
promptly collect. On May lo, 1837, a general suspension of the 
banks took place. This stopped the treasury, for its deposits 
were with the banks. The panic of 1837 was on, with its cruel 
and unparalleled wreck of every vital business interest. 

TWENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS— ^^tvs. Session.— Called 
Sept. 4, 1 837, to consider the financial situation. House organized 
by electing James K. Polk, Tenn., Speaker. Both branches Dem- 
ocratic ; House by a majority of 13. The President's message 
defended Jackson's " Specie Circular," but recommended the Gov- 
ernment to break off from the banks, whether State or National, 
and rely on an Independent Treasury System,* with an issue of 
Treasury notes ; further, to stop paying the deposits due the 
States under the act then in force. The message met with vio- 
lent opposition from Whigs and many Democrats. Clay, Web- 
ster, Cushing and others made it a text for the review of Dem- 
ocratic finance, from the beginning of the Government down. 
The Democratic opponents of the message switched off into a 
separate party, calling themselves " Conservatives." The bills 
enacted sustained the Administration and marked the era of a 
complete separation between State and National banking. They 
stopped the distribution of the surplus among the States, 
extended the time to merchants who had borrowed National 

* This was really the Sub-Treasury plan proposed by the National Republi- 
cans in the 23d Congress, and then rejected by the Democrats. It was now 
opposed by the Whigs, who saw, since the distress was on, an opportunity to re- 
establish a National bank, and, as they reasoned, thus lift the country out of panic. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 523 

moneys, and sanctioned the issue of Treasury notes to the ex- 
tent of $ 1 0,000,000. 

The interest of the session was heightened by Calhoun's reso- 
lutions in the Senate against interference with slavery in the 
States, and to the effect " that it would be inexpedient and im- 
politic to abolish or control it in the District of Columbia or the 
Territories." He was loud in his praise of the Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820. From this time on the subject of slavery came 
up in nearly every session of Congress, till 1863. Congress ad- 
journed, Oct. 16, 1837. 

TWENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS— First Regular Session.— 
Met Dec. 4, 1837. The coalition between the Whigs and Con- 
servative Democrats still prevailed, and it defeated in the House 
the Senate bill to establish an Independent Treasury, though it 
came to the relief of that department by authorizing it to accept 
as current the notes of specie-paying banks. This innocent- 
looking measure really permitted the Administration to get away 
from the hampering effects of Jackson's Specie Order without 
the humiliation of formally withdrawing it. 

The determination of the Southern States to regain Texas 
came boldly forth this session by a bill for annexation, which did 
not pass. It will be curious now to watch the growth of this 
idea of enlarged slave territory, first by direct acquisition, and 
then by the doctrine that, notwithstanding the Missouri Com- 
promise, all Government territory was open to slavery ; and to 
note that the idea kept even pace in its growth with the loss of 
political power occasioned by a preponderance of free States and 
the rapid growth of the Anti-Slaver)^ sentiment. Congress ad- 
journed, July 9, 1838. 

TWENTY -FIFTH CONGRESS —Second Session. — Met 
Dec. 3, 1838. There was no political legislation of moment dur- 
ing this session. The Administration was as if wrapped up in 
a hard Democratic shell, and the drift of sentiment in Congress 
and the country was away from it and toward the Whigs, or 
some element equally liberal in its interpretation of the Consti- 
tution and willing to propound and risk something for the relief 
of the country. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1839. 



524 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

twenty-sixth' CONGRESS— Y'lrsi Session.— Met Dec. 
2, 1839. The organization of the House was delayed by a closely 
contested Congressional election in New Jersey. Five Democrats 
contested the seats of five Whigs. Neither set was admitted until 
after the choice of a Speaker, which fell to Robert M. T. Hunter, 
Va., a Whig, and in favor of the Sub-Treasury plan. The Whigs 
in this instance were aided by a few regular Democrats and by 
the friends of Calhoun, who for several sessions had swung free 
lances in both House and Senate. The final decision of the 
case was not had till in March, 1840, when the Democratic con- 
testants were seated, making the full Democratic strength 122^ 
and the Whig strength 113. The leading act of the session was 
one providing for the " collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of 
the public money." It was simply Monroe's Independent Treas- 
ury plan, and it was passed by a small majority in both Houses 
and signed by the President. The Whigs opposed it under the 
lead of Clay, but some of them, as Cushing, favored it. A 
heavy blow was aimed at the system of Internal Improvement 
by an act suspending all appropriations therefor. The practice 
of "pairing off" began during this session. J. Q. Adams intro- 
duced a resolution to censure it, but it was not put on its pas- 
sage. The practice has grown ever since — grown to be a 
nuisance. John Tyler, Va., an ultra Democrat of the Calhoun 
school, won his way to the Vice-Presidency on the Whig ticket 
by his opposition to the Administration during this session. 
Congress adjourned, July 21, 1840. 

ELECTION OF 1840.— The Whigs took the lead in National 
Convention at Harrisburg, Pa., Dec. 4, 1839. Clay, the ablest 
and most pronounced Whig in the country, was not deemed 
available as a candidate owing to a desire to conciliate the Anti- 
Mason and other opposing elements, and to the thought that 
one of military prowess would go through, as Jackson had done. 
The nomination for President was, therefore, conferred on Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison, Ohio, and for Vice-President on John 
Tyler, Va. No platform. 

The Democratic Convention met at Baltimore, May 5, 1840, 
and unanimously renominated Van Buren, leaving the States to 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 525 

fill Up the Vice-Presidency. A lengthy platform was adopted, 
affirming (i) "That the Federal Government was one of limited 
powers ; " (2) " That the Constitution does not confer the right 
on the Government to carry on a system of internal improve- 
ment ; " (3) nor to assume the debts of the States contracted for 
internal improvement ; (4) " Justice and sound policy forbids the 
Government to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of 
another or one section to the injury of another ; " (5) urged econ- 
omy ; (6) Congress has no power to charter a U. S.bank ; (7) and 
no power to interfere with the domestic institutions of the States ; 
(8) Government money must be separated from banking institu- 
tions ; (9) this country is the asylum of the oppressed of all 
nations. 

The Abolition or Liberty party nominated, Nov. 13, 1839, 
James G. Birney, N. Y., for President, and Francis Lemoyne, 
Pa., for Vice-President. Its platform favored (i) The abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia and Territories ; (2) Stop- 
page of the inter-State salv^e trade ; (3) General opposition to 
slavery to the full extent of constitutional power. 

All parties were now ready. The campaign was the liveliest 
on" record. The October elections inspired the Whigs. Their 
attack on Van Buren's financial policy was telling all along the 
line. The furore was intensified by the introduction of the spec- 
tacular. Log-cabins with the latch-strings hanging out, and 
barrels of hard cider, were made the type of " out West " gener- 
osity and happy pioneer life. The meetings were frequent and 
extended into every county and town. The result was a Whig 
victory of astounding magnitude, Van Buren carrying but five 
Southern and two Northern States. 

TWENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met 
Dec. 7, 1840. A quiet session and no work of political moment. 
Electoral vote counted in February, 1 841, showing Harrison 234 
and Van Buren 60 for President ; for Vice-President, Tyler, 
234 ; Johnson, 48 ; L. W. Tazewell, Va., 1 1 ; and James K. 
Polk, Tenn., i. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1 841, 
and on March 4 Harrison and Tyler were sworn into office. 



626 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



XIV. 

HARRISON'S AND TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1 84 1 — March 3, 1845. 

William Henry Harrison, Ohio, President. John Tyler, Va 

Vice-President. 
(Harrison died April 4, 1841, having served one month.) 

Congresses. 
Twenty-seventh Congress 



Twenty-eighth Congress. 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Sessions. 

1, May 31, 1 84 1 -September 13, 1841. Extra Sess. 

2, December 6, 1841-August 31, 1842. 

3, December 5, 1842-March 3, 1843. 

1, December 4, 1843- June 17, 1844. 

2, December 2, 1844-March 3, 1845. 



Whig. 



Democrat. 



Basis ol 

States. 47,700. Votes. 

Alabama 5 7 

Arkansas I 3 

Connecticut 6 8 

Delaware I 3 

Georgia 9 II 

Illinois 3 5 

Indiana 7 9 

Kentucky 13 15 

Louisiana 3 5 

Maine 8 lo 

Maryland 8 10 

Massachusetts 12 14 

Michigan . . I 3 

Mississippi 2 4 

Missouri 2 4 

New Hampshire. . . 5 7 

New Jersey 6 8 

New York 40 42 

North Carolina 13 15 

Ohio 19 21 

Pennsylvania 28 30 

Rhode Island 2 4 

South Carolina 9 11 

Tennessee 13 15 

Vermont 5 7 

Virginia 21 23 

Totals 242 294 



Wm. H. Har- 
rison, Ohio. 



8 

42 

15 
21 

30 

4 

15 

7 



J-vT^' 



9 
15 

5 

10 
10 
H 

3 

4 



8 
42 

15 
21 

30 

4 



M. Van R.M.John- 
Buren, N. Y. son, Ky. 



234 



234 



II 



23 
60 



31 
48 



* L. W. Tazewell got the 11 votes of 'South Carolina for Vice-President, and 
James K. Polk got I vote out of the column of States set down as for Johnson. 
The popular vote was : Harrison, 1,275,017 — 19 States; Van Buren, 1,128,702 — 7 
States ; Birney, 7,059. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 527 

•« 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Mass. 

Secretary of Treasury Thomas Ewing, Ohio. 

Secretary of War John Bell, Tenn. 

Secretary of Navy G. E. Badger, N. C. 

Attorney- General John J. Crittenden, Ky. 

Postmaster-General Francis Granger, N. Y. 

777^ INAUGURAL.— \{2.xv\^ovls> Inaugural was a genial, 
assuring paper, with a blow at Jackson's excessive use of the 
veto power and his " to the victor belong the spoils " theory, 
and at both his and Van Buren's attempts to make political capi- 
tal out of the currency question. On March 17 he called an 
extra session of Congress, to convene May 31, to consider the 
revenue and financial situation. He died April 4, and John 
Tyler succeeded. This was the first time a Vice-President suc- 
ceeded to the Presidency on the death of the President. 

TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS— "E^tr^ Session.— Met, 
pursuant to call, May 31, 1841. House organized by electing 
John White, Ky., Whig, Speaker. Whig majority in Senate 6 ; 
in House 25. The Whig majority was harmonious and had a 
plain duty to fulfil, as they thought, for their promises to the 
country had been explicit during the campaign and their policy 
well outlined. They therefore began by repealing the Indepen- 
dent Treasury Act, passing a Bankrupt Law, and an act to dis- 
tribute certain proceeds of public lands among the States, all of 
which were signed by President Tyler. But when they came 
to substitute for the Independent Treasury a U. S. Fiscal Bank, 
even though it was an acknowledged improvement on the old 
U. S. Bank, the President interposed with a veto, his reason 
being that it was unconstitutional. This sudden swing to the 
President's old strict construction notions alarmed the Whigs. 
Not wishing to break with him they asked him to frame a bill 
which he could sign. After consulting his Cabinet, he presented 
one which was passed by both Houses, but which, to the aston- 
ishment of the Whigs and the country, he also vetoed. The 
Cabinet felt they had been insulted, and, with the exception of 
Webster, resigned. The Whigs* grew indignant over their be- 
trayal, and in an address to the country declared the President 
an impediment to their work of reform and repudiated him as 



528 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the head, and as a member, of the party. Congress adjourned, 
September 13, 1841. 

TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS— Y\xs\. Regular Session. 
— Met Dec. -6, 1 841, amid great pohtical uncertainty. The Presi- 
dent's course had demoralized the Whisks, and the fall elections 
had gone against them. He had reorganized his shattered Cabi- 
net out of very conservative material, and it stood. Secretary of 
State, Daniel Webster, Mass. ; Secretary of Treasury, Walter 
Forward, Pa. ; Secretary of War, John McLean, Ohio ; Secre- 
tary of Navy, A. P. Upshur, Va. ; Attorney-General, Hugh S. 
Legare, S. C. ; Postmaster-General, Charles A. Wickliffe, Ky. 
The folly of having placed him on the ticket was apparent to all, 
for in accepting a place there, with the implied pledge to favor 
Whig doctrine, he certainly renounced none of his old rigid con- 
struction sentiments which threw him into the Calhoun school, 
and made it impossible for him to support Van Buren and tlie 
Democratic ticket. He was certain of a kind of support, how- 
ever repudiated by the Whigs, for the Democrats who saw re- 
turning success through the Whig demoralization, naturally 
encouraged him in every measure calculated to further stampede 
them. 

TARIFF ACT OF 1842. — Thus inauspiciously the regular 
session began. The Whigs came to the front with a Tariff act 
to amend the act of 1833, under whose scaling terms the duties 
had run so low that government receipts were now less than the 
expenses. The bill awakened the old animosities of the school 
of rigid interpreters, and called forth almost the old debates of 
1828 and 1832, which, it will be remembered, were against the 
constitutionality of the Protective idea, and which involved the 
question of nullification. It passed, however, but was unfor- 
tunately coupled with a clause providing for the distribution of 
any surplus that might arise to the States. The President 
vetoed it, as violative of the compromise of 1833, which, as to 
protection and revenue, was to run till 1 842, and as to non-dis- 
crimination against the planting interests was practically without 
time. Another was passed without protective features. This 
was also vetoed. A third was passed, without the protective 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 529 

and the surplus clauses, and was signed Aug. 30, 1842. This 
became the Tariff act of 1842. It found a prevailing rate of 20 
per cent, on leading articles, and on the principle that the gov- 
ernment must have revenue, raised the rates some 10 per cent., 
cottons going to 30 per cent, woollens to 40 per cent., silks to 
;^2.50 per pound, bar iron to ^25 per ton, and pig iron to $g per ton. 
Tea and coffee were still free, but sugar went to 2^ cents per 
pound. The bill to distribute the surplus was passed separately 
and vetoed. In the Senate debates on this Tariff, Clay and Cal- 
houn, who stood together in the compromise Tariff of 1833, 
parted company, and the former charged the latter with revamp- 
ing the " free trade theories of a certain party in the British 
Parliament." 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION.— An exciting period in the 
session was reached when John Q. Adams, notwithstanding the 
previous decision of the House to refuse to entertain petitions 
for the abolition of slavery, presented a batch of them, on the 
ground that " the right of petition " was guaranteed by the Con- 
stitution. For this an unsuccessful attempt was made to vote 
him censurable. Scarcely had the flurry over this subsided when 
Joshua R. Giddings, Ohio, moved (March, 1842) his celebrated 
resolutions to the effect that slavery only exists by force of posi- 
tive law, and is limited to the territory and jurisdiction wherein 
such law is found. That, being a curtailment of the rights of 
man, it cannot go beyond such jurisdiction by force of any com- 
mon law or custom, nor be instituted anywhere except by 
express stipulation of the authorities interested. This, in con- 
nection with the claim that the government had exclusive juris- 
diction over its unincorporated and incorporated territory, 
became the bulwark of those who afterwards fought to exclude 
slavery from the Territories. Giddings was censured by the 
House, resigned, and was vindicated by re-election. 

Congress adjourned, Aug. 31, 1842. 

TWENTY-SEVENTH CONG RES S—Second Session.— Met 
Dec. 5, 1842. The condition of the country was still unsatis- 
factory. The Treasury was empty, and ;^ 14,000,000 behind. 
The government could not place a loan of ;^ 12,000,000, author- 
34 



530 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 

ized in 1841. Treasury notes were below par. The revenues 
were decreasing, for the Tariff Act of Aug. 30, 1842, had not yet 
begun to operate favorably. The dominant Whigs had lost their 
leader by the resignation of Clay from the Senate (March, 1842). 
His repeated defeats for the Presidential nomination, the inability 
of his party to fulfil its pledges to the people, owing to the 
hostile attitude of Tyler, the direct attacks of the Administra- 
tion and its " corporal's guard " of followers on him, had filled 
him with disgust for political life. This was a terrible blow to 
the party, for he had unflinching courage, rare tact, grand elo- 
quence, unquestioned rectitude of intention, and an advanced 
ground which brought out all the magnetism of his leadership. 
The best evidence of his qualities as a political captain is fur- 
nished by the fact that he built and held his party without the 
ordinary accessories of power and patronage. The session was 
barren of political results, except a warning by Anti-Slavery 
Whigs to the country to beware of the secret efforts going on to 
recover Texas, in the interest of the South. 

Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1843. 

TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS— Y\r^\. Session. — Met 
Dec. 4, 1843. The result of the Congressional elections had 
been adverse to the Whigs. They had still a majority of four 
in the Senate ; but their majority of twenty-five in the House 
had been turned into a Democratic majority of sixty-one. The 
House therefore organized by the election of John W. Jones, Va., 
Speaker. The President's message was a political curiosity. 
Contrary to all his rigid construction notions, to the freshest tra- 
ditions and plainest professions of the only party now giving him 
comfort and support, he favored a national paper currency, and 
as to Internal Improvement, he went so far as to urge a system 
for the West. Two treaties were presented to the Senate for 
ratification, one rectifying the northwest boundary, the other an- 
nexing Texas. The latter was rejected, by a solid Whig vote 
and a strong Democratic contingent (seven in all). This thrust 
" Texas annexation " directly into politics. To annex at any 
cost became a Southern policy. A free North on the line of 
36° 30' to the Pacific would prove so overshadowing as to 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 531 

endanger the political supremacy of the South and its pecutiar 
institution. Of the two public improvement bills passed during 
the session, one for the East, the other for the West, the Presi- 
dent vetoed the former. Congress adjourned, June 17,. 1844. 

ELECTION OF 1844.— The Liberty Party was first in the 
field, in cQ«vention at Buffalo, N. Y., Aug. 30, 1843. ^ts candi- 
date for President was James G, Birney, Mich. ; for Vice-Presi- 
dent, Thomas Morris, Ohio. Its platform announced (i) human 
brotherhood as the cardinal principle of democracy; (2) de- 
manded divorce of the general government from slavery; (3) 
stated that the party was not sectional but national, resting on 
the thought that slavery was in derogation of the principle of 
American liberty; (4) that the faith of the nation as originally 
pledged in all original instruments not to extend slavery beyond 
its present limits had been broken; (5) that slavery is against 
natural rights, therefore strictly local; (6) that the general gov- 
ernment has no authority to extend it to the Territories ; (7) 
called on the States to enact penal laws against the return of 
fugitives. 

The Whigs met in national convention at Baltimore, May i, 
1844, and nominated, for President, Henry Clay, Ky., and for 
Vice-President, Theodore. Frelinghuysen, N. Y. A brief plat- 
form announced as cardinal principles (i) "a well-regulated 
national currency ; " (2) " a tariff for revenue, discriminating with 
reference to protection of domestic labor; " (3) " distribution of 
the proceeds of sales of public lands ; " (4) " a single term for 
the Presidency ; " (5) reform of executive usurpation. 

The Democratic Convention met at Baltimore, May 27, 1844. 
This was a postponed convention from the previous December, 
in order to allow the Van Buren sentiment to ferment. Calhoun 
was Van Buren's opponent, and the former was running on the 
Texas annexation tide, the latter against it, not pronouncedly, 
but enough so to make his slaughter desirable. Calhoun, 
offended at the postponement of the convention and manner of 
choosing delegates, did not appear with the South Carolina dele- 
gation. His influence was not less by absence. Van Buren's 
clear majority of the 266 delegates was turned to his defeat by 



532 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

a resolution that the nomination should be made only by a two- 
third vote. This he could not control. He withdrew on the 
eighth ballot, and James K. Polk, Tenn., received the nomina- 
tion for President, and George M. Dallas, Pa., for Vice-President.* 
The platform affirmed that of 1840, and added (i) that the Con- 
stitution does not warrant the distribution of the proceeds of pub- 
lic land sales amdng the States ; (2) that the President has a 
right to use the qualified ("pocket") veto; (3) that all of 
Oregon ought to be reoccupied and Texas be annexed. * 

The parties thus went to the country with their candidates and 
principles. Texas annexation, the Oregon ('* 54° 40' or fight ") 
question, and a vigorous effort to prove that under the act of 
1842 Polk and Dallas were safe tariff men, were the hinging 
points of the Democrats. The Whigs drove the Protective 
Tariff idea and relied greatly on the fame of their candidate. 
Silas Wright, who had refused to serve on the Democratic ticket 
as Vice-President, on account of the slaughter of Van Buren, 
and who had resigned from the Senate to run as governor of 
New York, unwittingly contributed to the election of the ticket 
he had declined to run on. He went through as governor on his 
individual popularity, and the National ticket followed by a bare 
majority. The vote of New York elected Polk and Dallas, the 
State and National elections being held on the same day. And 
to this result Clay himself was an unwise contributor, for his effort 
to conciliate Southern Democrats by an untimely letter favoring 
postponed Texas annexation alienated enough anti-slavery 
Whigs to have still overcome Polk's popular majority in 
New York. In no National election was the result so close and 
doubtful in so many States. In fourteen it was not known for 
several days, and in several of these the vote of the Liberty 
party was a balance of power. 

TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met 
Dec. 2, 1844. President Tyler had swung, in every respect, over 
to. the doctrines of the extreme Southern school of Democrats, and 
actively co-operated with them under the lead of his Secretary of 
State, J.ohn C. Calhoun. His last message favored Texas an- 

• * Silas Wright, N. Y., was first nominated for Vice-President, but declined. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 533 

nexation and the assumption of her cause with all its conse- 
quences. The South was a unit on this measure. At Ashley, S. C, 
a meeting had been held (May, 1844), seeking to combine the 
Southern States in Convention, to unite themselves in a body to 
Texas, if Texas was not annexed as a State to the Union. The 
Texas treaty of annexation which had been rejected in the Sen- 
ate was now substituted by a joint resolution to annex the State, 
through a commission, it being understood that the incoming 
President (Polk) would appoint such body. But at Calhoun's 
instance and to the surprise of everybody, the President deter- 
mined to send out (March 3, 1845) ^ special messenger to 
arrange terms. Only on Calhoun's assurance that such act 
would not interfere with the formal commission provided for did 
the resolution secure the necessary support. It passed, and in 
pursuance of it Texas was afterwards incorporated as a State, 
with slavery under her own constitution, and with the proviso 
that slavery should not exist in any State formed from her ter- 
ritory North of 36° 30', and that the question of slavery in any 
States formed from her territory South of that line should be left 
to the people of such States. Her condition being that of war 
with Mexico, the war was assumed by the United States, it being 
only a question of time when the then pending armistice between 
Texas and Mexico should end. Calhoun did not originally 
favor war with Mexico. He thought Mexico could be quieted 
by a money consideration. As the annexation was more his act 
than the President's, he was, after war broke out, charged with 
being its author. 

A bill to organize Oregon into a Territory up to 54° 40', 
away beyond the boundary claimed by England, was passed in 
the House, but the Senate failed to consider it. Harbor im- 
provement bills for both East and West were passed, but vetoed. 
The result of the electoral count in February showed 170 elec- 
toral votes for Polk and Dallas, and 105 for Clay and Freling- 
huysen. March 3d, Florida became a State of the Union. Con- 
gress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1845. March 4, 1845, Polk 
and Dallas were sworn into office. 



534 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



XV. 
POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1845 — March 3, 1849. 

James K. Polk, Tenn., President. George M. Dallas, Pa., 

Vice-President. 



Congresses. 
Twenty-ninth Congress. 

Thirtieth Congress. 



Sessions. 

J I, December i, 1845-August 10, 1846. 
\ 2, December 7, 1846-March 3, 1847. 

j I, December 6, 1847-August 14, 1848. 
\ 2, December 4, 1848-March 3, 1849. 



ELECTORAL VOTE:^ 



Democrat. 



Basis of 

States. 70,680. Votes 

Alabama 7 9 

Arkan.sas I 3 

Comiecticut. ... 4 6 

Delaware i 3 

Georgia 8 10 

Illinois........ 7 9 

Indiana ID 12 

Kentucky 10 12 

Louisiana 4 6 

Maine 7 9 

Maryland 6 8 

Massachusetts . . 10 12 

Michigan 3 5 

Mis.sissippi 4 ' 6 

Missouri 5 7 

New Hampshire 4 6 

New Jersey 5 7 

New York 34 36 

North Carolina 9 11 

Ohio , . . 21 23 

Pennsylvania.. . 24 26 

Rhode Island . . 2 4 

South Carolina 7 9 

Tennessee ii 13 

Vermont 4 6 

Virginia 15 17 

Totals 223 275 



* The popular vote was : Polk, 
eleven States ; Birney, 62,300. 



James K. Polk, 
Tenn. 

9 
3 



10 

9 
12 

6 
9 



5 
6 

7 
6 

36 



26 



^1 
70 



George M. 
Dallas, Pa. 

9 

3 



10 

9 
12 

6 
9 



36 



26 



170 



Whig. 



Henry Clay, Theodore Fre- 
Ky. linghuysen, N. Y. 



23 



105 



105 



1,337,243 — fifteen States; Clay, 1,299,068— 



■IIIIIIIIIIIIW^^^^^^^^^^ 




PRESIDENTS FROM 1841 TO 1853. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 535 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State James Buchanan, Pa. 

Secretary of Treasury Robert J. Walker, Miss. 

Secretary of War William L. Marcy, N. Y. 

Secretary of Navy George Bancroft, Mass. 

Attorney-General John Y, Mason, Va. 

Postmaster-General Cave Johnson, Tenn. 

PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.— The Message to Congress 
dwelt largely on the Texas situation, and favored war with 
Mexico, especially if she infringed the treaty of 1 839, as to in- 
demnity to American citizens. It referred also to the Oregon 
boundary, showed the public debt to be ^17,000,000, condemned 
all slavery agitation, favored a Sub-Treasury system, and recom- 
mended a Tariff for revenue, with protection to home industry 
as an incident. He applied the- Jackson policy of rotation in 
office in the construction of his Cabinet, and in the Depart- 
ments. 

TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS— Y'lr^t Session.— Met Dec. 
I, 1845. Both branches were Democratic. House organized by 
electing John W. Davis, Dem., Indiana, Speaker, the vote being 
120 to 70, though the full Democratic strength was 142, Whig 
75, and American 6.* The relative strength in the Senate was 
30 Democrat and 25 Whig. 

MEXICAN WAR. — A popular convention in Tex^s had ac- 
cepted the overture for annexation made by the United States. 
Mexico protested and withdrew her minister to Washington. 
General Taylor had been sent to the east bank of the Neuces, 
into neutral territory, and on Dec. 31, 1845, Congress passed an 
act extending authority over this territory lying between the 
Neuces and Rio Grande. None of these acts provoked Mexico 
to war. She was still in negotiable mood. Even befpre this, 
Dec. 29, 1845, Texas had passed into the American Union. The 
President ordered General Taylor (March, 1846) to march to the 
Rio Grande and hold the neutral ground. He did so, and was 
met by Arista, at Palo Alto, where a battle was fought. The 
next day was fought Resaca de la Palma, which sent Arista back 

* This was the first appearance of the American party in National politics. Four 
of the above six were from New York, and two from Pennsylvania. 



536 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

into Mexican territory. Now American blood had been shed 
on American soil, and Mexico was an offender. A casus belli 
had been found. The President sent a Message to Congress 
and asked for a Declaration of War. The House responded 
with a " declaration " and ;^ 10,000,000 to back it up, the Whigs 
favoring it under protest, and on the ground that an American 
army must not be sacrificed, even if forced into peril or a 
doubtful cause by the folly of a President* 

WILMOT PROVISO.— V^ith the expectation that the war 
would soon be over and that an important cession of territory 
could be had, the President asked Congress for an appropriation 
of ;^2,ooo,ooo to be placed at his disposal to negotiate with. To 
this appropriation, Mr. Wilrnot, Pa., on behalf of himself and 
many Northern Democratic friends, moved what became historic 
as " The Wilmot Proviso," to wit, " That no part of the territory 
thus acquired should be open to the introduction of slavery." 
In strict law the proviso was unnecessary, for Mexico had abol- 
ished slavery, and any soil acquired from her would be free soil. 
But Texas had reintroduced slavery before annexation to the 
United States, and Wilmot felt that any other territory acquired 
from Mexico would be overrun by slaveholders, who would soon 
be clamoring for the protection of their institution. And this he 
felt, too, in the face of the new Democratic doctrine " that no 
power resided in Congress to legislate upon slavery in the Ter- 
ritories." This proviso brought heated discussion of fhe slave 
question. Calhoun declared it to be an outrage and menace. 
It occupied a place in Congress for two sessions. State Legis- 
latures acted on it. Parties took it up. From that time on it 

* The Whigs denounced as a falsehood the declaration, " Whereas, by the act of 
the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that government and the United 
States." The Liberty party opposed the war outright, regarding it as a huge, unjus- 
tifiable scheme to acquire slave territory. Calhoun opposed it also, as needless. He 
felt that the same results could have been brought about with less excitement and 
loss, and consequently with less detriment to the slave cause, by negotiation. It 
was said that the President, who had been approached by many members of his own 
party who were averse to the war, secured their support by the promise that it would 
be over in a short time and that negotiations for peace had been agreed upon before 
the war, which only awaited the return of Santa Anna from exile to be signed. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 537 

was nothing new to hear of civil war and a dissolution of the 
Union on account of it. How well Wilmot guessed may be 
inferred from the subsequent action of Calhoun (Feb. 19, 1847), 
when he introduced into the Senate his celebrated Slavery Reso- 
lutions, declaring the Territories to be the common property of 
the several States, and denying the right of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in a Territory or to pass any law which would have the 
effect to deprive the citizen of any slave State from migrating 
with his property (slaves) into such Territory. Though these 
resolutions were not acted on, they answered the purpose in- 
tended, to wit, to form a basis on which the slave could solidify 
against the free States ; on which a repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise line could be effected, and' on which the subsequent 
claim of non-interference with slavery in the Territories could 
be founded. 

THE OREGON BOUNDARY.— T\xq last Democratic plat- 
form had pronounced in favor of an Oregon Territory up to the 
line of 54° 40^ or a fight " with England. The Whigs, now 
that Texas had been annexed, asked for a fulfilment of their 
pledges.* The Democrats of the extreme Southern school op- 
posed an}^ action, but enough of them came to the support of the 
President to warrant him in going on with negotiations. He 
soon found that he could not keep his party pledges of 54° 40', 
for England refused to surrender above 49°. t The opinion of 
the Senate was asked,. in accordance with an old Federal custom. 
The Whigs accepted the responsibility, joined with enough Dem- 
ocrats to save the administration from its party friends, and agreed 
to sanction a treaty based on 49°. This became the Oregon 
Treaty of June 15, 1846, by which war with England was averted. 
It was followed by a bill to organize The Territory of Oregon, 
without slavery. It was opposed by Southern Democrats, but 
passed, and was not reached in the Senate. 

TARIFF OF 1846.5: — This disappointing act, passed in a 

•^ For a full statement of this boundary trouble, see Oregon Treaty, p. 94. 
f Calhoun, when Secretary of State, had proposed 49° as a line upon which an 
adjustment might be had. In this he was at odds with his party. 

\ " The bill passed the House and came to the Senate. Section was again arrayed 



538 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

partisan spirit, against the promises of the Democrats not to 
disturb the act of 1842, and in obedience to the doctrine of rigid 
interpretation, which admitted of Tariff for revenue without the 
incident of protection, reduced the rates provided in the former 
act, from five to twenty per cent, and introduced the theory of 
general ad valorem duties. The river and harbor improvement 
bills, passed by both Houses, were vetoed, on the old rigid con- 
struction ground that the government had no right to appro- 
priate money for internal improvements. Congress adjourned, 
Aug. 10, 1846. 

TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS—SQcond Session.— Met 
Dec. 7, 1846. Mexican war measures occupied the time of this 
session. Appropriations were made to sustain the war, and pur- 
chase territory. Over the latter a spirited debate was had, which 
resulted in its passage in the House with the Wilmot proviso 
attached, and its passage in the Senate with the proviso removed. 
The House then acquiesced in the Senate's position. Ineffectual 
attempts were made to formally extend the Missouri Compromise 
line to the Pacific, to organize Oregon Territory, without slavery, 
and to appropriate money for Internal Improvement. All these 
measures showed a sectional vote. The Improvement bills 
passed, but received a pocket veto. Congress adjourned sine 
die, March 3, 1847. 

THIRTIETH CONGRESS— ¥'irst Session.— Met Dec. 6, 
1847. The Whigs were in a majority in the House, and organ- 
ized it by electing Robert C. Winthrop, Mass., Speaker. The 
Democrats controlled the Senate. The President's message ex- 
tolled the working of the new Sub-Treasury system,, spoke of 

against section in the debate, and before the vote was taken it was found that the 
Senate was a tie, and that the Vice-President would have the casting vote. George 
M. Dallas, a Pennsylvanian, could defeat or pass the bill. He had the presidential 
bee in his bonnet as bad as any man I ever knew, and, hoping that he could gain 
the favor of the South in aid of his aspirations, he gave the casting vote against the 
section of his nativity, and the tariff bill of '46 became a law. As I anticipated, it 
put out the fire in our furnaces, paralyzed many of our best industries, and, finally, 
brought the credit of the Government to a discount. It also had a disastrous effect 
upon the dominant party, and co?;t them the presidency in 1848, when General 
Taylor was chosen." — IIo?t. Simon Cameron, in Press. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 539 

the continued success of the Mexican war, and stated that nego- 
tiations for peace were then pending. These negotiations re- 
sulted in the treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo (Feb., 1848), which 
made the Rio Grande the boundary and gave New Mexico and 
Upper Cahfornia to the United States for ;^ 1 5 ,000,000. This 
immense acquisition of territory brought up the slavery question 
again, and during the debates on the erection of Oregon Ter- 
ritory without slavery, and the proposition to extend the Mis- 
souri Compromise line to the Pacific, Calhoun took occasion to 
say, " The great strife between the North and South is ended. 
The North is determined to exclude the property of slaveholders, 
and of course slaveholders themselves, from its territory. The 
separation of the North and South is completed. The South is 
bound to show that dearly as she prizes the Union, there are 
questions she regards as of more importance than the Union. 
It is not a question of territorial government, but a question 
involving the continuance of the Union." 

A compromise bill passed the Senate, organizing 0;-egon, 
California and New Mexico, leaving slavery questions to be de- 
cided by the Supreme Court. The House rejected this, and 
sent the Senate the Oregon bill above mentioned. The Senate 
accepted this, but amended it so as to extend the Missouri Com- 
promise line to the Pacific. The House regarded this as danger- 
ous, since it would cut the country into two distinct sections 
with different, if not hostile, institutions, and would, moreover, 
be equivalent to extending slavery to vast free areas, the Mex- 
ican territory being all free under Mexican laws. It therefore 
refused to extend the line. The Senate receded, and the Oregon 
bill passed, without slavery. The vital question in all these de- 
bates was the right of Congress to legislate on slavery in the 
Territories, a question which was pushed in many ways till it 
culminated in the Kansas-Nebraska affair, the Dred Scott de- 
cision, and the desperate step of secession. The House took 
decided ground in favor of Internal Improvement b^ a resolution 
aimed at the rigid interpreters, claiming that the government had 
a right to improve rivers and harbors, under the clause to regu- 
late commerce and provide for the common defense. Wisconsin 



540 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

entered the Union, May 29, 1848. Congress adjourned, Aug. 
14, 1848. 

ELECTION OF 1848.— The Democrats took the field first 
in National Convention at Baltimore, May 22, 1848. The two- 
third rule, which defeated Van Buren in the previous conven- 
tion, was affirmed, and has since prevailed in the conventions of 
that party. Lewis Cass, Mich., was nominated for President, 
and William O. Butler, Ky., for Vice-President. A great con- 
tention arose over the power of the government to regulate 
slavery in the Territories, and a test resolution to the effect that 
the Congress had no power to interfere with slavery either in 
the States or Territories was voted down. The platform affirmed 
that of 1844, and went on to (i) congratulate the country on the 
results of the Mexican war; (2) commended the qualified veto; 
(3) denounced a Tariff, except for revenue, and hailed " the noble, 
impulse given to the cause of free trade by the repeal of the 
tariff of 1842 and the creation of the more equal, honest and 
productive tariff of 1846;" (4) congratulated the Republic of 
France; (5) endorsed Polk's administration. 

The Whig National Convention met at Philadelphia, June 7, 
1848, and nominated General Zachary Taylor, La., for President, 
and Millard Fillmore, N. Y., for Vice-President. Taylor's recent 
military achievements in Mexico gave him the preference over 
such other candidates as Clay, Webster and Scott. Test resolu- 
tions favoring the Wilmot Proviso were voted down. The 
Whigs were no more ready for open commitment to anti-slavery 
than the Democrats had shown themselves, in their convention, 
to be ready for open commitment to a pro-slavery policy. The 
convention did not adopt a platform, but resolutions passed at a 
grand ratification meeting, on the 9th of June, answered the 
same purpose. They were mainly heroic, inviting the country 
to a trial of well-known Whig principles under the laurel- 
crowned chieftain whose name was held in such high honor by 
every American. 

The Free Soil Democrats met in convention at Buffalo, Aug. 9, 
1848, and nominated for President Martin Van Buren, N.Y., and 
for Vice-President Charles Francis Adan^s, Mass. This faction 



RULING THROUGH TARTIES. 541 

of Democrats, called " Barnburners " by their opponents, had sent 
a delegation to the Baltimore convention, pledged to oppose the 
further extension of slavery in the Territories, A counter dele- 
gation, called '' Hunkers," also sent a delegation pledged to non- 
agitation of the slavery question. The convention sheared each 
of its strength by dividing the vote between them. This being 
equivalent to no vote at all, the Free Soilers withdrew and set 
up candidates of their own. They promulgated a lengthy plat- 
form which sought (i) to secure free soil to a free people; (2) 
withheld support from both the regular parties because one (the 
Democratic) had stifled free sentiment, and the other (Whig) had ' 
been afraid to pronounce itself; (3) affirming the ordinance of 
1787, and the proviso of Jefferson that after 1800 no slavery 
should exist in the Territories ; (4) that slavery exists only by 
State law and that " Congress has no more power to make a 
slave than to make a king;" (5) that the only way to prevent 
slavery in territory now free is to prevent it in all territory ; (6) 
favoring Internal Improvement ; (7) Watchword, " Free Soil, 
Free Speech, Free Labor, Free Men." 

The campaign was not a bitte-r one, except as the Democrats 
made it bitter among themselves. The effort to establish slavery 
in the newly-acquired Mexican territory, and to push the slavery 
question so as to commit the government either to non-inter- 
ference with it or to direct sanction of it in all territory, estranged 
many Democrats. The Southern Democrats themselves were 
not a unit, for many of them preferred Taylor, from a slave 
State and without a platform, to Cass, from a free State and with 
a platform which did not directly favor or mention slavery. The 
old Liberty party blended with the Free Soil party. As in the 
former campaign, New York was the political turning-point. 
And as the Liberty party, by dividing the Whigs, had given it to 
Polk in 1844, so now the Free Soilers, by weakening the Demo- 
crats, gave it to the Whigs. The election in November was a 
Whig victory. 

THIRTIETH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 4, 
1848. Parties were very fidgety during this session. In view of 
the prominence given to slavery agitation, the old party lines 



642 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

began to chafe considerably. Thus the Northern Democrats, 
almost in a body, voted in the House to organize the Territories 
of California and New Mexico without slavery, or, as it was 
then termed, with the Wilmot Proviso. This the Senate amended 
by providing for their organization with slavery. The Senate at- 
tempted to force its position by making the bill a part of the 
appropriation bill, thus presenting to the House the alternative 
of a moneyless government or two slave Territories. The re- 
sponse was an appropriation bill and the old Mexican free laws 
till July 4, 1850. The Senate withdrew its "rider," and the 
appropriation bill passed. A violent debate sprung up in the 
House over a resolution condemning the exhibition and sale of 
slaves in the city of Washington. The electoral count in Feb- 
ruary showed for Taylor and Fillmore 163 votes, and for Cass 
and Butler 127 votes. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 
1849. The candidates-elect were sworn into office March 5, 
1849, the 4th being Sunday. 

XVI. 
TAYLOR'S AND FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATIONS. 
March 5, 1849 — March 3, 1853. 

Zachary Taylor, La., Pi^esident. Millard Fillmore, N. Y., 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Thirty-first Congress. \ '' December 3, 1849-September 30, 1850. 
\ 2, December 2, 1850-March 3, 1851. 

Thirty SFCONn roNrRF<^s i '' I^e^ember i, 1851-August 31, 1852. . 
IHIRTY-SECOND CONGRESS. | ^^ December 6, 1852-March 3, 1853. 

ELECTORAL VOTE^ 

Whig. Democrat. 

Basis of Zachary Tay- Millard Fill- Lewis Cass, W.O.But- 

States. 70,680. . Vote. lor. La. more, N. Y. Mich. ler, Ky. 

Alabama 7 9 .. .. 9 9 

Arkansas I 3 .. .. 3 3 

Connecticut 4 6 6 6 

DelaA^are l 3 3 3 

* The popular vote was: Taylor, 1,360,101 — 15 States; Cass, 1,220,544 — 15 
States; Van Buren, 291,263. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



543 



Electoral Vote — Continued. 



Whig. 



Democrat. 



Basis of 

States. 70,680. Vote. 

Florida I 3 

Georgia 8 lo 

Illinois 7 9 

Indiana lO 12 

Iowa 2 4 

Kentucky 10 12 

Louisiana 4 6 

Maine 7 9 

Maryland 6 8 

Massachusetts 10 12 

Michigan 3 5 

M ississippi .' 4 6 

Missouri 5 7 

New Hampshire 4 6 

New Jersey 5 7 

New York . . 34 36 

North Carolina 9 1 1 

Ohio 21 23 

Pennsylvania 24 26 

Rhode Island 2 4 

South Carolina 7 9 

Tennessee 11 13 

Texas 2 4 

Vermont 4 6 

Virginia 15 17 

Wisconsin 2 4 

Totals 230 290 

THE CABINET. 



Zachary Tay- 



lor, 



La. 

3 
10 



Millard Fill- Lewis Cass, 
more, N. Y. Mich. ' 

3 



9 
12 

4 



7 
36 
II 

26 

4 



26 

4 



23 



163 



163 



17 
_4 
:27 



W.O.But- 
ler, Ky. 



23 

9 

4 

17 

4 

127 



Secretary of State John M. Clayton, Del. 

Secretary of Treasury William M. Meredith, Pa. 

Secretary of War Geo. W. Crawford, Ga. 

Secretary of Navy W^illiam B. Preston, Va. 

Secretary of Interior Thomas H. Ewing, Ohio.* 

Attorney-General Reverdy Johnson, Md. 

Postmaster-General Jacob Collamer, Vt. 

THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS— Y'lvst Session.— Met Dec. 
3, 1849. The Senate was Democratic, 35 to 25. In the House 
were no Democrats, 105 Whigs and 9 Free Soilers. The latter 
held a balance of power, and stubbornly exercised it through 
sixty-two ineffectual ballots for Speaker. Only by agreeing that 
the highest number of votes for any one candidate should elect, 
was a Speaker chosen in the person of Howell Cobb, Ga., a 
Democrat of the extreme Southern school, and a slavery exten- 



* This " Home Department," since called " the Interior Department," was created 
by the Thirtieth Congress. 



544 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sionist. The annual message deprecated the sectional feeling 
regarding slavery, spoke of the folly of disunion as a remedy, 
and took the Jackson stand, that at all hazards the Union must 
be maintained. 

CALHOUN'S NEW DOCTRINE.— Th^ postponed ques- 
tion of the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the 
Pacific came up early. Calhoun, always aggressive and masterly, 
proposed to cover the whole question by extending the Constitu- 
tion of the United States to all the newly-acquired Mexican 
Territory.* Webster met this situation by showing that the 
Constitution was designed only for States, and that it could not 
operate even in the States without an act of Congress to enforce 
it. Further, -that the sanction which that instrument gave to 
slavery where it existed would not create slavery where it did 
not exist, for slavery was a creation of the several States and not 
of the general government. While Calhoun's proposition was 
under debate the President's views were presented. They favored 
the admission of California directly,t as she was ready, and the 
erection of New Mexico and Utah into Territories, unmixed with 
slavery, leaving the matter to be decided by their people when 
they asked for admission as States. 

COMPROMISE OF 1850.— Clay now came forward with a 
set of compromise measures, which in one shape or another 
were adopted during the session, and in the aggregate became 
known as the Compromise of 1 850. They, in general, provided 
for the admission of California ; for the erection of New Mexico 
and Utah Territories, unmixed with slavery, the same to be de- 
cided by the people when they came to form States ; the adjust- 
ment of the Texas boundary and the payment of a money in- 
demnity to that State; a more vigorous fugitive slave law; the 
abolition of the slave trade, but no interference with it in the 
District of Columbia. The Whigs and Free Soilers regarded 
Clay's Compromise as a weak and unnecessary concession of 

* Calhoun's idea was that inasmuch as the Constitution sanctioned slavery, its ex- 
tension over any territory would establish slavery there. 

f California had formed a State Constitution without slavery, June 3, 1849, ^^'^^ 
had made formal application for admission as a State, Feb. 13, 1850. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 545 

free soil principles, and the extreme pro-slavery Democrats re- 
garded it as a surrender of the late doctrine that Congress had 
no right to prohibit a slaveholder from going where he pleased 
in the Territories and taking his property with him. The meas- 
ures therefore satisfied but few of the leaders, yet they served the 
purpose of temporarily postponing the agitation and perhaps 
averting, for the time, secession and civil war, threats of which, 
on the part of the South, were rife. California became a State, 
without slavery, Sept. 9, 1850.* The Fugitive Slave Law, the 
result of the Compromise, was a severe measure, much more so 
than the old one. It greatly encouraged the pursuit of fugitives, 
made it compulsory on all citizens to aid in their arrest, and 
compelled U. S. Commissioners to remand them without trial. 
Its execution led to indignant protest on the part of Northern 
citizens and to the protection of free negroes, charged with being 
slaves, by special State enactments. That part of the Compromise 
prohibiting interference with slavery in the District of Columbia 
was not accepted, and slavery was abolished therein by act of 
Sept. 1 5, 1 850. The Congress adjourned, Sept. 30, 1850. 

TAYLORS DEATH.— Mi^x an illness of four days, due to 
exposure in the sun on Independence day, President Taylor died, 
July 9, 1850. Vice-President Fillmore was duly inaugurated, 
July 10, 1850. His Cabinet was confirmed by the Senate, as 
follows : 

Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, Mass. ; Secretary of 
Treasury, Thomas Corwin, Ohio ; Secretary of War, Winfield 
Scott, ad interim, and Charles M. Conrad, La., permanently ; 
Secretary of Navy, William A. Graham, N. C. ; Secretary of In- 

* The political importance of California to the South was great. Long before, 
the free States preponderated in the House. But the Senate thus far was equally 
divided between North and South. California turned the scale. Her admission 
as a free State gave 32 free State Senators to 30 slave State Senators, and there was 
no other State ready for admission south of 36° 30', nor likely to be for a long time. 
Besides California was the first fruit of the Mexican conquest, and the policy which 
controlled her admission was likely to hold as to the remainder of the Mexican Ter- 
ritory. It was a disappointing situation for the pro-slavery leaders, and the begin- 
ning of that policy which sought to break down all old barriers and compromises, 
invited the Kansas difficulty, and formed a prelude to a separate Confederacy. 
35 



546 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

terior, A. H. H. Stuart, Va. ; Attorney-General, John J. Critten- 
den, Ky. ; Postmaster-General, Nathan K. Hall, N. Y. 

POLITICAL SITUATION.— Wh\\Q this sad transition was 
a peaceful one, and boded no disaster to the dominant party as 
did that from Harrison to Tyler, there were many things going 
on, more or less portentous. In the session of Congress just 
adjourned (First session Thirty-first Congress) the slavery meas- 
ures of the extreme Southern Democrats had been even more 
opposed by Northern Democrats than by the Whigs. This was 
not only following up their charge that the pro-slavery element 
of the party had betrayed them in the previous Presidential cam- 
paign, but it showed a disposition to break away from the ultra 
doctrine of slavery extension to which the slaveholding mem- 
bers sought to commit the entire party. 

The Whigs had not, as was expected, committed themselves 
in their National Convention to the Wilmot proviso. They there- 
fore did not attract the members of the Liberty party, nor those 
of its successor, the Free Soil Democrats. On the contrary they 
lost many of their leaders to the pro-slavery Democrats. Thus 
while the Democratic party was being torn to pieces by losses of 
its Free Soil element, it was being recuperated by accessions of 
the pro-slavery Whig element. The Whigs losing, gained noth- 
ing, and their decay as a positive political force dates from the 
death of Taylor. 

We have seen how rapidly the pro-slavery whirlpool was 
made to revolve under the bold yet skillful management of 
Calhoun, and how at every revolution the country had to face 
some new situation, till, failing to force the line of 36° 30' 
through to the Pacific, thus making a free and slave section, it 
took the form of broad denial of the right of the government to 
interfere with slavery in any place, or at all. The accession of 
pro-slavery Whigs to the Democrats changed the aspect of affairs 
somewhat. It stopped, for the time being, the threats of seces- 
sion and war, and introduced a new, more conservative and 
popular idea, over which to wrangle. It will be remembered 
the Democrats, in their last National Convention at Baltimore, 
had voted down a resolution to the effect that the government 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 547 

had no authority over slavery in the Territories, the corollary 
being, that the people of each Territory should be let alone to 
treat the matter as they pleased. The pro-slavery Whigs now 
took hold of this doctrine and forced it on the attention of the 
Democrats and the country. It was the doctrine which after- 
wards became known as Popular, or Squatter, Sovereignty, 
which figured so prominently in the Kansas affair, and which 
served to draw Douglas, Geary, Reeder and other leaders outside 
of the then existing Democratic lines. It was the doctrine also 
which the hardy miners of California applied in their own State, 
to the surprise, if not disgust, of those who originated it. The 
pro-slavery sentiment which had thus proved a wedge to force 
asunder the Whig party, and had nothing more to fear from it as 
an organization, had to address itself to a more thorough con- 
trol of the Democratic party. But in the meantime there would 
be an advance of opposition sentiment, and a final gathering up 
of political fragments into something more formidable, as a 
political force, than had yet been dreamed of 

THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
2, 1850. The session was quiet and gloomy. The administra- 
tion had nothing new to urge, and parties agreed to hold their 
own in comparative peace. Adjourned sine die, March 3, 
1851. 

THIRTY-SECOND (f(9iV(Pie^55— First Session.— Met Dec. 
I, 185 1. The Congressional elections had turned on the Com- 
promise measures of 1850, and the people endorsed them, as a 
happy quietus to slavery agitation, by returning a majority of 
Democrats of rather conservative turn. Both branches were, 
therefore. Democratic, the Senate by 8 and the House by 50. 
The House organized by electing Linn Boyd, Ky., Democrat, 
Speaker. The application of the Platte country (afterwards 
Nebraska and Kansas) for a Territorial government threatened 
for a time to open the slavery question, but the matter was 
dropped before debate took acrimonious turn. There was but 
little disposition shown on the part of the majority to antagonize 
the administration, and in general the session work was rou- 
tine. 



548 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ELECTION OF 1852.— The Democrats led the fielH in 
National Convention at Baltimore, June i, 1852. This was a 
supreme effort of the Southern or pro-slavery Democrats to 
commit the party to their doctrine of slavery extension, and to a 
rigid interpretation of the powers of the general government, 
the latter being then and afterwards best known as *' State 
Rights " doctrine. The nominee for President was Franklin 
Pierce, N. H. ; and for Vice-President, William R. King, Ala. 
The platform reaffirmed the greater part of that of 1848, and 
added : (i) No more revenue than is necessary to defray the 
expenses of the government. (2) No National Bank. (3) Sep- 
aration of government moneys from banking. (4) The country 
is an asylum for the oppressed : therefore, no abridgment of 
dtizenship and the right to own soil. (5) Congress has no right 
to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the 
States. (6) Endorsement of the Compromise measures of 1850, 
and resistance to all attempts to renew the slavery agitation. 

(7) Adhesion to the Kentucky aqd Virginia resolutions of 1798. 

(8) The war with Mexico was necessary and its results approved. 

(9) No monopoly for the few at the expense of the many, and the 
Union as it is and should be. 

The Whigs met in National Convention at Baltimore, June 
16, 1852, and nominated for President, Winfield Scott, Va. ; for 
Vice-President, William A. Graham, N. C. The platform 
claimed: (i) A sufficient power in the government to sustain it 
and make it operative. (2) Revenue from tariff, with " suitable 
encouragement to American industry." (3) Internal Improve- 
ment. (4) Endorsed the Compromise measures of 1850, "the 
Fugitive Slave Law included." The platform was fair to the 
party — though extremely conservative — except the endorsement 
of the Compromise measures of 1850, " including the Fugitive 
Slave Law," which endorsement, as the sequel proved, was a part 
of the plan of the extreme pro-slavery leaders to commit both 
political parties to their policy of slavery extension, and which 
reacted on the Whig party with twice the effect it did on the 
Democratic party, so soon as the nature of those Compromise 
measures became fully known. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 549 

The Free Soil Democrats held their National Convention at 
Pittsburg, Pa., August 11, 1852, and nominated for President, 
John P. Hale, N. H.; for Vice-President, George W. Julian, Ind. 
Its platform announced : (i) That government was established to 
secure the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. (2) That the Constitution expressly denies to the 
general government all power to deprive any person of life, 
liberty or property without due process of law ; that, therefore, it 
has no more power to make a slave than a king, or to establish 
slavery than establish a monarchy. (3) No more slave States, 
no slave Territory, no national slavery, no national legislation for 
the extradition of slaves. (4) The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 
denounced as repugnant to the Constitution, common law, Chris- 
tianity, and of no binding force. (5) The Compromise measures 
of 1850 disapproved. (6) Both political parties repudiated. 

The election in November resulted in a Democratic victory, 
the Whigs carrying only Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky 
and Tennessee, though the result in most of the others was very 
close. 

THIRTY-SECOND CONGRESS—Second Session. — Met 
Dec. 6, 1852. The bill for the organization of the Territory of 
the Platte, rejected at the last session, came up in the shape of a 
bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, which included 
Kansas. It was rejected by the Senate, at the instance of 
Southern members, the time not being ripe for open assumption 
of the position to which the Compromise measures of 1850 
logically led. The electoral count, in February, showed 254 
votes for Pierce and King, and 42 for Scott and Graham. Con- 
gress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1853. President Pierce was 
sworn into office, March 4, 1853, and Vice-President King 
some time afterwards, he being sick on March 4. 



550 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



XVII. 

PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1853— March 3, 1857. 

Franklin Pierce, N. H., President. William R. King, Ala., 

Vice-President. 



Congresses. 
Thirty-third Congress. 

Thirty-fourth Congress. 



Sessions. 

1, December 5, 1853-August 7, 1854. 

2, December 4, 1854-March 3, 1855. 

1, December 5, 185 5- August 18, 1856. 

2, August 21, 1856-August 30, 1856, extra session. 

3, December i, 1856-March 3, 1857. 



ELECTORAL VOTE^ 



Democrats. 



Whigs. 



Basis of 

93.423 

7 



Votes. 
9 



Franklin 
Pierce, 
N. H. 



WiHiam R. Winfield William A. 



States. 

Alabama 

Arkansas 2 

California 2 

Connecticut 4 

Delaware i 

Florida i 

Georgia 8 

Illinois 9 

Indiana ii 

Iowa 2 

Kentucky 10 

Louisiana 4 

Maine 6 

Maiyland 6 

Massachusetts 1 1 

Michigan 4 

Mississippi 5 

Missouri 7 

New Hampshire 3 

New Jersey 5 

New York 33 

North Carolina 8 

Ohio 21 

Pennsylvania 25 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina 6 

Tennessee 10 

Texas 2 

Vermont 3 

Virginia 13 

Wisconsin 3 5 5 

Total 234 296 254 



4 
4 
6 

3 

3 

10 
II 
13 

4 
12 

6 



13 
6 

7 
9 

5 

7 
35 

ID 

23 

27 

4 
8 

12 
4 
5 

15 



15 



King, 
Ala. 

9 
4 
4 

6 
2 

3 

10 
II 
13 

4 



6 

7 
9 
5 
7 
35 
10 

23 

27 

4 

8 



Scott, 
Va. 



Graham 
N. C 



15 

5 
254 



42 



42 



* The popular vote was, Pierce, 1,601,474—27 States; Scott, 1,386,578—4 States; 
Hale, 156,149. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 551 

THE CABINET 

Secretary of State William L. Mavcy, N. Y. 

Secretary of Treasury James Guthrie, Ky. 

Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Miss. 

Secretary of Navy James C. Dobbin, N. C. 

Secretary of Interior Robert McLelland, Mich. 

Attorney-General Caleb Gushing, Mass. 

Postmaster-General James Campbell, Pa. 

POLITICAL SITUATION. — ThQ administration opened 
with surface indications of peace. The country had ratified the 
Compromise measures of 1850, on the theory that they afforded 
an escape from slavery agitation, but without knowing that they 
were fuller of the germs of agitation than any measures yet 
propounded. Both parties had been committed to them in their 
platforms, at the instance of their pro-slavery members ; they 
therefore stood committed to the logical results of those 
measures, or else to demoralizing retreat. The discovery of 
what they contained appalled the Whigs. They never recovered 
from the shock, lost their organization, never ran another Presi- 
dential Candidate. They literally died of too much Compro- 
mise, or, as was piquantly said at the time, " of an attempt to 
swallow the Fugitive Slave law." President Pierce in his first 
message thoroughly committed the administration to the Com- 
promise measures. The pro-slavery Democrats were therefore 
in a very enviable situation. They could force their construction 
of the situation with the hands of the Whig party tied, and with 
the assurance that the Democratic organization was firmly with 
them. 

THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS— ¥irst Session.— Met Dec. 5, 
1853. The Democrats had a majority in the House, over all 
opposition, of 74, and in the Senate of 14. The House organized 
by re-electing Linn Boyd, Ky., Speaker. Discussion of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill occupied the greater part of the session. 
It opened the slavery agitation in a new form, and it was not to 
cease till quieted by arms. The Nebraska bill of the previous 
sessions took the form of a bill to create two Territories out of 
the Platte country, the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. 
Both lay north of 36° 30^ the Missouri Compromise line of 1820; 
and therefore both were free Territories according to the provi- 



552 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sions of that Compromise. But the new pro-slavery doctrine — 
new since the Compromise measures of 1850 — was, that these 
measures of 1850 invalidated those of 1820, and committed the 
government to non-interference with slavery in the Territories. 
Therefore the slavery question was an open one as to all terri- 
tory, with no right on the part of Congress to legislate for or 
against it. 

The Senate Bill (Kansas and Nebraska), under tKe amendment 
of Mr. Douglas, therefore provided, " that so much of the 
Compromise bill of 1820 preventing slavery north of 36° 30', 
as was inconsistent with the Compromise of 1850 establishing 
non-intervention by Congress with slavery in either States or 
Territories, was inoperative and void, it being the true intent and 
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or 
State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." 

This amendment is noteworthy. It admitted what the pro- 
slavery Democrats and Whigs already knew, that the Compro- 
mise measures of 1850, logically construed, repealed the Com- 
promise of 1820. It hampered them, however, for with the 
repeal of the Compromise of 1820 and their claim to go where 
they pleased with slave property, they had all the public terri- 
tory open to slavery. The Douglas idea was that introduced 
into the Democratic party by pro-slavery Whigs, to wit, the idea 
of squatter or popular sovereignty, a leaving of slavery to the 
voice of the people of the Territory or proposed State. 

While the bill as thus amended was not what the South wanted, 
it secured the united support of pro-slavery Democrats and 
Whigs, but it divided the Northern Democrats into two even 
bodies (44 each), one of which supported it, and the other op- 
posed it. The Northern Whigs opposed it and the Free Soil 
Democracy. The Democratic breach soon closed, but the Whig 
breach widened, and the Northern wing left their name to be 
perpetuated for a little while by their Southern brethren, they in 
the meantime assuming the title of anti-Nebraska men, soon to 
be merged into Republican. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 553 

The passage of the bill, May 25, 1854, opened the eyes of 
the entire country to what was concealed in the apparently inno- 
cent Compromise measures of 1850, and transferred the scene 
of combat from Congress to the plains of the West, where it 
was carried on amid confusion and bloodshed for years. The 
squatter sovereignty idea placed the free and slave States on 
their merits as colonizers. The section that could send the 
greatest number of bona fide settlers into the new fields was 
bound to win in the end. Could the South, which- had always 
out-manoeuvred the North in slave diplomacy, cope with that 
more populous section in this practical adjudication of the deli- 
cate question? Congress adjourned, August 7, 1854. 

THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec 
4, 1854. The session resulted in no measure of political sig- 
nificance. Adjourned sijze die, March 3, 1855. 

A NEW POLITICAL FORCE.— The Native American idea 
is almost as old as the country. In 1790 naturalization could 
be had after two years' residenee. In 1795 it required five years' 
residence. A great majority of foreigners, either Frenchmen 
direct or Irish and Scotch driven from home for sympathy with 
France, naturally affiliated with the Republican party, which was 
always ready for a war with England. This fact induced the 
Federal measure of 1798, extending the period for naturalization 
to fourteen years. In 1802 the Republicans, in order to rein- 
force their party, fixed the time at five years, where it has since 
stood. They were not disappointed, for this legal consultation 
of a tendency, backed by the encouragement it ever received 
in their declaration of principles, has always secured to them a 
majority of the foreign vote, especially in the cities. To coun- 
teract, or correct, this, an organized movement was begun in New 
York as early as 1835. In 1844 the Native Americans carried 
that city, electing their Mayor by a good majority. This success 
caused the movement to spread to adjoining States. It em- 
braced members of all parties, and became prominent in local 
municipal contests. Its presence in Philadelphia resulted in the 
murderous riots' of 1844. In 1852 it reappeared as a secret or- 
ganization, officially as the American party, but popularly as the 



554 BUILDING AND JIULING THE REPUBLIC. 

" Know-Nothing " party, from the reticence of its members as to 
their principles. Of it Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, Va., said : " The 
vital principle of the American party is Americanisin — develop- 
ing itself in a deep-rooted attachment to our own country — its 
Constitution, its union, its laws — to American men, American 
measures, American interests." Its cardinal principle was : 
"Americans must rule America ; " its countersign was the order 
of Washington at a critical time during the Revolution, " Put 
none but Americans on guard to-night." By holding a balance 
of power in many cities and States, its vote decided several im- 
portant elections, and as the extent of its influence could not be 
foreknown, political results were at times genuine surprises to 
party leaders. It received large accessions from the Whigs, es- 
pecially of the South, after the passage of the Kansas and Ne- 
braska bill, who could not go with their Northern brethren into 
the anti-Nebraska movement, nor yet with the Democrats into a 
pronounced pro-slavery movement. In 1855 it carried as many 
as nine State elections. It was therefore a power which had 
been startlingly felt in the Congressional elections of that year, 
and was to be still further felt in the session about to be held. 

THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS— Y\x?,\. Session.— Met Dec. 
3, 1855. In the Senate the Democrats had a majority of nine. 
In the House the magnificent Democratic majority of the pre- 
vious Congress had been wiped out and turned into one of anti- 
Nebraska men, of whom there were 117, as against 79 straight 
Democrats and 37 pro-slavery Whigs. Owing to the fact that 
many of the majority were Know-Nothings, a protracted contest 
arose over the speakership. A choice was not made till Febru- 
ary, 1856, when a resort was had to the method adopted by the 
Thirty-first Congress, that of a choice by the highest number of 
votes. N. P. Banks, Mass., was then chosen on the 131st bal- 
lot. He was a pronounced anti-Nebraska man, and therefore the 
majority were represented in the Speaker. This was the stormy 
beginning of one of the stormiest sessions ever held. 

KANSAS TROUBLE. — The Kansas question came up im- 
mediately and occupied the entire session. As we have seen 
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), with the 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 555 

Squatter Sovereignty' Amendment, threw open these Territories 
to competitive settlement by North and South, or by anti-slavery 
and pro-slavery men. The South had the advantage of prox- 
imity — Missouri being next to Kansas. The Missourians 
swarmed over the border and elected a congressional delegate, 
Nov. 29, 1854, who was accepted by the Congress. They 
did the same in 1855, and elected a Legislature, which met at 
Pawnee in July of that year, and enacted a State Constitution, 
strongly pro-slavery in its terms. 

The anti-slavery settlers were all this time pouring in through 
Iowa and Nebraska — they had been prohibited from passing 
through the State of Missouri — against the armed protest of the 
pro-slavery occupants — Border Ruffians as they were called — 
and the condition of the Territory was one of war, with but little 
doubt as to the result, for the anti-slavery settlers came to make 
investment and to stay, while the pro-slavery occupants clung 
less tenaciously to the soil, and wasted time and energy in the 
excitement which the new field furnished. The anti-slavery or 
free State settlers met in convention at Topeka, Sept. 5, 1855, 
and enacted a free State constitution. They denounced the ex- 
isting Legislature as not of Kansas, but the work of Missourians 
who had crossed the border to create it, elected a delegate to 
Congress, who was rejected, and on Jan. 15, 1856, elected State 
officers, and asked to be admitted as a State. Their work was 
rejected by Congress. 

The local conflict grew louder and more sanguinary. The 
President interfered, Jan. 24, 1856, by a message endorsing the 
pro-slavery Legislature, and, Feb. 11, 1856, by a proclamation 
denouncing the attempt to form a free State government as an 
act of rebellion. He ordered the governor of the Territory 
(Shannon) to enforce the laws of the pro-slavery Legislature 
with the United States troops. This only added to the excite- 
ment. The free State Legislature, which met at Topeka, July 4, 
1856, was broken up by United States troops, acting under the 
President's order. By this time a congressional committee, sent 
to the scene, reported that no free, fair election had ever been 
held in the Territory. On the strength of this, and in order to 



556 BUILDING AND JIULING THE REPUBLIC. 

balk the effort to force a government on the people without a 
fair expression of their sentiments as to whether it should be 
slave or free, the House refused to appropriate money for the 
army if it were to be used to sustain the pro-slavery Legislature 
of the Territory. 

It would be impossible to conceive of the excitement in both 
Houses over the question, and throughout the country. In the 
Senate Charles Sumner was knocked down and beaten (May 22,, 
1856), by Representative Brooks, South Carolina, for a speech 
which criticised his relative, Senator Butler, South Carolina. 
Congress adjourned Aug. 18, 1856. 

THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS— ^.^ir?. Session.— Called 
Aug. 21, 1856. This session was called to meet the emergency 
occasioned by the adjournment of Aug. 18, without an appro- 
priation for the army. The House still insisted on its proviso 
that the army should not be used to force a pro-slavery govern- 
ment on the people of Kansas ; but a change of governors hav- 
ing been announced — Shannon was superseded by Geary* — it 
receded, and the army appropriation bill was passed. The 
extra session adjourned Aug. 30, 1856. 

ELECTION OF 1856.— The Know-Nothing organization, 
which had been so successful in the State and local elections of 
1855, would now try its hand in national affairs as The American 
Party. It took the field first, and met in national convention, at 
Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1856. There were 227 delegates present. 
All the States were represented except Maine, Vermont, Georgia, 
and South Carolina. Many of the delegates (probably a fourth) 
were not so much "Americans " as anti-slavery men. Millard 
Fillmore, New York, was nominated for President, and Andrew 
J. Donelson, Tennessee, for Vice-President. The platform an- 
nounced : (i) Perpetuation of the Union. (2) Preference of 
native-born citizens for office. (3) No office for any one who 
recognizes obligation to any foreign prince, potentate, or power. 
(4) Non-interference by Congress with questions belonging to 
individual States, nor. by States with each other. (5) The right 

^' Geary arrived Sept. 9, 1856, and succeeded in bringing about a suspension of 
local hostilities without directly using the United States forces. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 557 

of native-born and naturalized citizens of any Territory to frame 
their own constitution and laws, and regulate their social affairs 
in their own way. (6) A residence of twenty-one years as ne- 
cessary to naturalization. On account of the failure of the 
convention to recognize the right of Congress to re-establish 
the Missouri Compromise line, the anti-slavery delegates 
withdrew, and threw their strength to the coming Republican 
party. 

The Democratic Convention met at Cincinnati, June 2, 1856, 
and nominated James Buchanan, Pennsylvania, for President, and 
John C. Breckinridge, Kentucky, for Vice-President. The plat- 
form endorsed preceding ones, and added, (i) Opposition to 
Americanism. (2) No more revenue than is necessary to defray 
expenses. (3) No general system of Internal Improvement. (4) 
Strict construction of Federal powers. (5) No National Bank. 
(6j No interference with Slavery in the Territories, the people 
to have the right to settle that question for themselves (this was 
an endorsement of the Squatter Sovereignty idea). (7) Approval 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 

REPUBLICAN PARTY. *— This new candidate for national 
favor received a name, said to have been suggested by Governor 
Seward, N. Y., in the latter part of 1855 or early part of 1856. 
It was a substitute for the title of " Anti-Nebraska Men," then 
applied to those who had opposed the Kansas-Nebraska act, and 
who were, in general, opposed to slavery and its extension. It 
raised a standard around which could rally the old Liberty 
party, the Free Soil Democracy, the Anti-Slavery Whigs, and 
all who were finding it irksome to follow the Democratic party as 
it grew more rigid in its interpretation of the Constitution, in- 
clined more and more to make a political dogma of State Rights, 
and refused to separate its own existence from that of slavery in 
the State, and slavery extension in the Territory. 

The Republican party held its first National Convention at 
Philadelphia, June 17, 1856, and nominated John C. Fremont, 
Cal., for President, and William M. Dayton, N. J., for Vice- 

* Called the "Black Republican" party by its opponents, on account of its 
sympathy for the colored race. 



558 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

President. Its platform showed that its members were Hbera! 
interpreters of the Constitution. It announced : ( i) That the Con- 
stitution, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, 
shall be preserved. (2) " No person shall be deprived of life, 
liberty or property without due process of law," and denial of 
the authority of Congress, or of a Territorial Legislature, or of 
any association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery 
in any Territory of the United States, under the present Con- 
stitution. (3) Congress, in the exercise of its Constitutional 
power over Territories, ought to prohibit " those twin relics of 
barbarism, polygamy and slavery." (4) Denounced the Kansas 
policy of the administration, and all effort to set up a pro-slavery 
government there, in defiance of the will of the people. {5) The 
immediate admission of Kansas with her Free State Constitution. 
(6) Government aid for a Pacific Railroad. (7) A system of In- 
ternal Improvement. 

The Whigs, or what was left of them, met at Baltimore, Sept. 
17, 1856. They, in common with the Know-Nothings, de- 
nounced the Democratic and Republican parties as sectional, 
and then, without further endorsing or discussing the Know- 
Nothing principles, agreed to support Fillmore and Donelson, 
because they regarded the country as already in a state of civil 
war, and believed that their election would be the best means of 
restoring peace. The Whig name now disappears from the party 
lists. 

After an exciting campaign, involving a wide discussion of 
principles, the election in November showed i State (Maryland) 
for Fillmore; ii free States for Fremont ; 14 slave States and 
the rest of the free (19 in all) States for Buchanan, 

THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS—Second Session.— Met 
Dec. I, 1856. The result of the Presidential election had served 
to tighten party lines. The Anti-Nebraska Men (now Republi- 
cans) were numerically the strongest body (108) in the House, 
but could not command a majority as against the Democrats 
(83) and Americans (43) or Know-Nothings. The Senate stood 
40 Democrats; 15 Republicans; 5 Americans. 

THE KANSAS QUESTION.— Th^ dispersion of the Free 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 559 

State Legislature at Topeka, Jan. 6, 1857, by Federal troops, 
and the arrest of its officers and many members, again brought 
the question prominently before Congress. The House passed 
a bill declaring the acts of the Pro-Slavery Legislature op- 
pressive and void, jvhich the Senate tabled. A change of 
governors from Geary, who had lost caste with the Pro-Slavery 
Legislature, to Robert J. Walker, Miss., gave respite from dis- 
cussion for the time being. 

TARIFF OF 1857. — While this session showed a spirit of 
generosity in encouraging railroad enterprises in the West by 
grants of public lands, it struck the country a cruel blow on the 
very last day of the session (March 3) by enacting the tariff of 
1857. This measure reduced duties all along the line of imports, 
and on leading articles almost to such rates as were wont to 
prevail before the war of 18 12, and had prevailed at no time 
since except at the end of the sliding scale (1841) provided by 
the act of 1833.* 

The electoral count in February showed 174 votes for Bu- 
chanan and Breckinridge ; 1 14 for Fremont and Dayton ; 8 for 
Fillmore and Donelson. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 
1857-. The candidates elect were sworn into office, March 4, 
1857. 

XVIIL 

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1857 — March 3, 1861. 

James Buchanan, Pa., President. John C. BREcTfLiNRiDGE, Ky., 

Vice-President, 

Congresses . Sessions . 

^ Congress / ^' December 7, 1857— June 14, 1858. 

IHIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, j ^^ December 6, 1858— March 3, 1859. 

^ ^ f I, December 5, 1859 — June 25, i860. 

Thirty-sixth Congress. | ^; December 3, i86^March 3, 1861. 

* This year (1857) occurred a great financial panic, during which there were 5,123 
commercial failures. The administration was compelled to borrow money at a dis- 
count of 8 to 10 per cent. 



660 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 
States. 93.423- 

Alabama 7 

Arkansas 2 

California 2 

Connecticut 4 

Delaware I 

Florida I 

Georgia 8 

Illinois 9 

Indiana Ii 

Iowa 2 

Kentucky. . lo 

Louisiana 4 

Maine 6 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts 1 1 

Michigan 4 

Mississippi 5 

Missouri 7 

New Hampshire.. .. 3 

New Jersey 5 

New York t^t, 

North Carolina. ... 8 

Ohio 21 

Pennsylvania 25 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina .... 6 

Tennessee 10 

Texas 2 

Vermont 3 

Virginia 13 

Wisconsin 3 

Totals 234 



Vote, 

9 

4 
4 
6 

3 

3 

10 
II 
13 

4 
12 

6 



13 

6 

7 
9 
5 
7 
35 
10 

27 

4 
8 
12 
4 
5 

15 
_5 
296 



Democrat. 



James J. C. 
Buchanan, Breckin- 
Pa. ridge, Ky. 



Republican. 

Jc^nC. Wm. L.' 
Fremont, Dayton, 



Cal. 



N.J. 



27 

*8 
12 

4 

15 



9 

4 
4 

3 
3 

10 
II 
13 

12 

6 



10 

27 

8 
12 

4 

15 



American. 



Millaixl A. J. 
Fillmore, Donelson, 



N. \ 



174 



174 



_5 
114 



_5 
114 



Tenn. 



THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State Lewis Cass, Mich. 

Secretary of Treasury Howell Cobb, Ga. 

Secretary of War John B. Floyd, Va. 

Secretary of Navy Isaac Toucey, Conn. 

Secretary of Interior Jacob Thompson, Miss. 

Attorney- General Jeremiah S. Black, Pa. 

Postmaster-General Aaron V. Brown. 



Continued. 



POLITICAL SITUATION.— A glance at the electoral vote 
shows that the persistent effort of the pro-slavery leaders to 
unify the Democratic party in their interest had at last succeeded. 



* The popular vote w^as, Buchanan, 1,838,169- 
II States; Fillmore, 874,534 — i State. 



[9 States; Fremont, 1,341,264 — 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 5(51 

Buchanan's election was a triumph for the South. The large 
vote for the Repubhcan nominee showed the possibiHties of the 
new party. The popular vote of the country was largely against 
the Democrats. The American or Fillmore vote represented 
those who wished to ignore the Slavery question. As things 
were shaping they must swing to some positive position ere 
long. It but remained for the Republicans to take a firm stand 
on the Slavery question. The agitation was sure to go on, and 
that in a way which must weaken Democracy by schism, for the 
extreme Southern leaders were beginning to see that the " Squat- 
ter Sovereignty " idea was not one which would bring them 
slavery extension, but would in the end defeat their long cher- 
ished intentions. They found that they were not natural 
colonizers, and that to establish a plantation in Kansas, or any 
Territory, and stock it with slaves, was a very different thing 
from taking up a small tract by a free-footed young farmer, 
ambitious to plow, sow and reap for himself This was where 
" Squatter Sovereignty " was proving deadly. Not much wonder 
that when the extreme Southern Democrats saw their mistake — 
or rather repented of their commitment to it, for they never 
favored it except as a means, perhaps their only means then, 
of capturing the entire Democratic organization — they backed 
away from it, charged its recognized authors or expounders, 
Douglas and others, with weak, unfair, and even treacherous, 
dealing, and finally resorted to the plan of a separate con- 
federacy.* 

DRED SCOTT DECISION.— Th^ decision of the U. S. 



* Two other methods of adding to the diminishing political importance of the 
South had been broached. One was to reopen the African slave trade. This 
would provide a means of pouring into the Territories an unlimited stream of slave 
immigrants, and thus competing with the greater numbers and resources of the 
North. The other was to conquer and annex Cuba and Central America. This was 
the meaning of the Lopez filibustering expedition which started from New Orleans 
(1851) for Cuba. And so with the Walker filibustering expedition, from the same 
place (1855), which operated on Central America. As encouragement to this idea 
of conquest and annexation, the Ostend Manifesto was proclaimed by our American 
ministers in England, France and Spain, citing that the safety of the United States 
required the acquisition of Cuba. 
36 



562 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Supreme Court, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, March 6^ 
1856, in the Dred Scott case, awakened intense interest, and be- 
gat feehngs of alarm thoughout the North. Its political effect 
was to bring the position of the extreme pro-slavery Democrats 
into bold relief. When Calhoun, years before, asked that the 
Constitution be extended to the Territories, he had two lines of 
thought : (i) That the Constitution sanctioned slavery. (2) That 
its extension would extend slavery, for a slave was property as 
anything else material was property. As we have seen, he was 
driven from this ultra position, or rather his position became un- 
tenable, by reason of the growth of the " Squatter Sovereignty " 
idea. But now the Supreme Court had come squarely to his 
position, and even gone beyond it* Notwithstanding the slave 
was by the Constitution and for purposes of representation three- 
fifths of a freeman, he became by the decision a chattel " without 
rights or privileges except such as those who held the power 
and the government might choose to grant him." The plaintiff^ 
Dred Scott, was not even a plaintiff in court, but a mere thing 
without status, and his case was dismissed for want of jurisdic- 
tion. Further, the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, 
and no act of Congress could be passed under the Constitution 

* As this important case was the last pro-slavery effort to sustain itself by form of 
law, and as the drift thenceforth is toward armed arbitrament, it is well to know 
its history. The case opened : 

Dred Scott ( U. S. Circuit Court, Dist. Missouri, 

vs. j To April T., 1854. 

John F. A, Sanford. ( Trespass Viet armis. 
The plaintiff, Dred Scott, was an original slave of J. F. A. Sanford, of Missouri. 
His owner resided in Illinois, a free State, with him from 183410 1838. He further 
resided with him in Minnesota Territory, free soil also, as being north of 36° 30'', 
the Missouri Compromise line of 1820. He then removed back to Missouri with him. 
The slave there resisted a flogging by bringing suit for damages, on the plea that 
residence in Illinois and Minnesota had made him a free man. The defense was 
that a descendant of slave ancestors could never be free, was not a citizen, had no 
status in court. The plaintiff won in the District Court. An appeal brought it to 
the Supreme Court. The opinion of the Chief Justice was not unanimous, but dis- 
senting opinions were filed. At the time of the decision many of the free States 
had laws, and all were operating on the principle, to the effect that a slave leaving 
his slave State and entering a free one was no longer a slave, but free. For the 
opinions in full, see Howard's U. S. Supreme Court Reports, vol. 19, p. 393. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 553 

with a view to preventing a slaveholder from entering any State 
or Territory with his slave property any more than from enter- 
ing it with his goods and chattels of whatever description. 

The legal effect of the decision was not only to wipe out the 
Compromise measure of 1820, which had been done construc- 
tively by those of 185c, but to wipe out those of 1850 also, which 
had introduced the Squatter or Popular Sovereignty idea ; that 
is, the idea of leaving the question of slavery to be decided by the 
people of the Territories when they came to form State Constitu- 
tions. It, in fine, opened all the Territories and all the free States, 
to the advent of slavery, no matter what their local laws might 
say on the subject. It nationalized the institution, by degrading 
the slave to the level of a horse, cow, plow or carriage, and over- 
rode every sentiment of humanity respecting him, as well as the 
old and well-established notion that as an institution slavery was 
a creature of State, or local, enactments. The decision was all too 
plainly a reflex of the extreme Southern sentiment to meet with 
sanction from the North, and as it destroyed the hope of Douglas 
and his now important Democratic following for a settlement of 
the question on the basis of Popular Sovereignty, they began to 
drift away from the regular party organization. 

THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS~Y\x-.\. Session.— Met Dec. 
7, 1857. The Presidential election carried along with it a Demo- 
cratic majority in both branches of the Congress. The Senate 
stood 39 Democrats, 20 Republicans, 5 Americans ; the House 
131 Democrats, 92 Republicans, 14 Americans. The tone of the 
parties was different also. The Republicans were squarely across 
the way of the Democrats. The Democrats were emboldened 
by recent successes, and by the fact that the administration was 
heartily with them. This latter they had been assured of by 
the message, which was all they could have wished. On the 
absorbing question of slavery as presented by the Kansas diffi- 
culty, the President took the ground that the State ought to be 
admitted at once under the Lecompton Constitution,* which 
sanctioned slavery. 

* The pro-Slavery party had (1855) adopted the Pawnee Constitution, which was 
simply the Constitution of Missouri, with a criminal code added raising numerous 



564 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The House organized by electing James L. Orr, S. C, Demo- 
crat, Speaker. A contest immediately arose over a bill, framed 
in accordance with the President's suggestion, to admit Kansas 
under the Lecompton Constitution. For three months the con- 
tention was bitter, abusive, and sectional. The Republicans took 
the ground that the Lecompton Convention, having been called 
to frame a Constitution and having done so, the instrument must 
be ratified by the people before the State could ask for admission. 
In this they were supported by Douglas, Broderick, Adrian, 
Hickman, and other Democrats (called Anti-Lecompton Demo- 
crats), who saw their theory of popular sovereignty destroyed 
if the people were to be denied an opportunity to express their 
preferences for or against slavery in their Constitution, by direct 
vote on the instrument itself The Southern Democrats stood 
solid for the bill and the President's position, that the delegates 
having been called to make a Constitution, there was no need 
of submitting it to the people. The bill passed the Senate. In 
the House it passed with the proviso that the Constitution should 
be first voted on by the people. A conference bill was final!}' 
agreed upon, which must be set down as an inexcusable, if not 
shameless, piece of legislation, inasmuch as it offered a bribe to 
the State to adopt the Lecompton Constitution. This bill ad- 
mitted the State with the House proviso, and the additional 
proviso that in case it adopted the Lecompton Constitution, it 
should have a large grant of public lands. To the credit of the 
Territory this did not have the desired effect, and on the sub- 
offences against slavery and imposing the death penalty. Not wishing to submit 
this to the people they called another Convention to meet at Lecompton to frame a 
Constitution. This was submitted to the people for ratification (December, 1857) by 
ballots printed " Constitution with Slavery," and '* Constitution without Slavery." 
As this gave the voter who was opposed to other features of the instrument no 
opportunity to record his views, the Free State party refused to vote, and refused to 
consider it a submission of the instrument to popular verdict. They, therefore, 
through the Territorial Legislature, which body they had secured control of at a 
regular election in which both parties participated, ordered another election which 
would give the people an opportunity to vote for or against the Constitution, and 
not for or against a single clause in it. This was the election held in August, 1858, 
which repudiated the Constitution by nearly 10,000 majority. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 5^5 

mission of the Constitution to the people, Aug. 2, 1858, it was 
rejected by an overwhelming majority. Minnesota became a 
State in the Union, May 1 1, 1858. Congress adjourned, June 14, 
1858. 

THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRFSS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
6, 1858. The session was barren of political results, though 
much discussion was had over slavery, the disposition of public 
lands among heads of families, afterwards known as the Home- 
stead policy, and the appropriation of public lands for school 
purposes. Oregon entered the Union, Feb. 14, 1859. Congress 
adjourned sine die, March 3, 1859. 

AN EXCITING SC/MMFR.— The supreme topic was slavery, 
and Kansas was the pivot on which it turned. The rejection of 
the Lecompton Constitution with slavery gave opportunity for 
another convention, at Wyandot, July, 1859, which drafted the 
Wyandot Constitution without slavery. This was ratified by the 
people, by a majority of 4,000. It was the Constitution under 
which Kansas was afterwards admitted, Jan. 29, 1861. This 
verdict of the people of Kansas in favor of a free State showed 
that there was nothing in the popular sovereignty idea upon 
which slavery could rely. 

The affair of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, Oct. 17, 1859, 
shocked sentiment both North and South. The audacity of his 
effort to stir up a slave insurrection, or to advance the anti- 
slavery cause by seizure of a town, and by armed force, awakened 
at first a feeling of repulsion. But the anger it begat, in the 
slave States, their eagerness to arm for defense, their desire to 
implicate the entire North in the raid, and their swift execution 
of the criminal, had the effect of eclipsing his crime by sympathy 
for the man, and by further animosity toward slavery itself The 
hanging of John Brown, Dec. 2, 1859, at Charlestown, W. Va., 
marks the date when the discussion of the right and wrong of 
slavery passed all political limits, and became general in social 
circles, in jurisprudence, and in religion. 

THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRFSS— First Session.— Met Dec. 
5, 1859. The Congressional elections had resulted favorably to 
the Republicans, and, though without a majority in the House, 



56d^ BUILDING AND RULING TME REPUBLIC. 

they outnumbered any other party. Analysis of the respective 
branches showed, in the Senate, 38 Democrats, 25 Repubhcans, 
2 Americans; House, 109 Republicans, 86 Democrats, 13 Anti- 
Lecompton Democrats, 22 Americans. This situation led to a 
protracted dispute over the organization of the House. Balloting 
was carried on two months, before it resulted in the choice of 
William Pennington, Republican, N. J., as Speaker. 

The application of Kansas for admission under the Wyandot 
Free State Constitution opened the slavery discussion with all 
its accustomed severity and prolixity. The House admitted the 
State, but the Senate rejected it, and engaged in a lengthy and 
desperate attempt to get back to the old Calhoun position that 
slavery in the Territories was beyond the jurisdiction of either 
Congress or the Territorial Legislatures ; in other words, that it 
must follow the Federal Constitution, and was inherent in the 
common law regarding personal property. An effort to pass a 
Homestead bill drew strictly party debate. The pro-slavery 
Democrats opposed the policy of cheap lands to immigrants. 
The Kansas experience had proved that the more populous 
North was the best colonizer, and that any extra inducement 
would only lead to an increased number of Free States. A 
spirited party discussion sprang up over the report of the com- 
mittee appointed at the instance of Mr. Covode, Pa., and known 
as the " Covode Investigation," to examine into the conduct of 
the Administration respecting the admission of Kansas as a slave 
State. The report found the Administration guilty of bribing 
members and editors to advocate the admission of the State 
under the Lecompton Constitution. Congress adjourned. June 
25, i860. 

ELECTION OF i860.— The Democratic National Conven- 
tion met at Charleston, S. C, April 23, i860. Delegates were 
present from all the States, to the number of 303. Caleb Cush- 
ing, Mass., presided. An early division of sentiment respecting 
slavery arose. The Southern and all extreme pro-slavery 
Democrats held that, under the Dred Scott decision, slavery 
could not be interdicted in the Territories. The Douglas Dem- 
ocrats held squarely to the doctrine of squatter, or popular sov- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. ^67 

ereignty. The dispute over these positions was so grave and 
lengthy that balloting for a candidate did not begin till May ist 
After fifty-seven ineffectual ballots, no choice appeared. Stephen 
A. Douglas, 111., stood highest, but never rose above 153 votes, 
202 being necessary to a choice, under the two-thirds rule. A 
Douglas, or Popular Sovereignty platform had been adopted by 
the convention, and thereupon many delegates from the Southern 
States withdrew. Seeing that no choice was possible, the con- 
vention adjourned to meet at Baltimore, June 18. The places 
of the withdrawn delegates had, in the meantime, been filled by 
those favorable to Mr. Douglas. The nominees therefore became 
Stephen A. Douglas, 111., for President, and Herschel V. Johnson, 
Ga., for Vice-President. A portion of this convention also se- 
ceded, and met the seceded Charleston convention on the 28th. 
The platform affirmed the Cincinnati platform of 1856, and added 
clauses pledging Democracy to a Pacific Railroad, and govern- 
ment aid therefor ; favoring the acquisition of Cuba ; denouncing 
State enactments designed to defeat the Fugitive Slave law ; ac- 
quiescence in Supreme Court decisions, but construction of them 
in the vein of Popular Sovereignty. 

The seceders from the Charleston Convention organized in 
Charleston and adjourned to meet in Richmond, June 1 1. They 
then adjourned to meet in Baltimore, June 28. Here they 
were reinforced by the seceders from the Baltimore Conven- 
tion, under the lead of Butler and Cushing. The nominees be- 
came John C. Breckinridge, Ky., for President, and Joseph Lane, 
Oregon, for Vice-President. The platform affirmed the Cincin- 
nati platform of 1856, and pledged the party to a Pacific Rail- 
road ; to the acquisition of Cuba; favored the execution of the 
Fugitive Slave law ; announced that the unorganized territory 
of the United States was open to all citizens with whatever kind 
of property ; that the federal government must protect the rights 
of persons and property wherever its authority extends ; that 
the right of sovereignty begins when the settlers in a territory 
have a population adequate to the formation of a State constitu- 
tion, and is consummated by the admission of the State, and 
that then its people stand on a par with the people of all the 



5(J8 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

States, and the State ought to be admitted with or without 
slavery, as its constitution provides. 

The Republican National Convention met at Chicago, May 
i6, i860, in the *' Wigwam," built for the purpose. Delegates 
were present from all the Northern States and from Delaware, 
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia, with scattering 
representatives from 'all the Southern States except the Gulf 
States. The work of the Convention ended in a single day by 
the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, 111., for President, and 
Hannibal Hamlin, Me., for Vice-President. The platform an- 
nounced: (1) the necessity of the Republican party; (2) main- 
tenance of the principles of the Declaration ; (3) denounced all 
schemes of disunion ; (4) maintenance of the rights of States ; 
(5) denounced the administration for attempting to force Kansas 
in as a slave State under the Lecompton constitution and con- 
trary to the will of her people ; (6) decried the extravagance of 
the administration; (7) the normal condition of the Territories 
is free, and no stock in the dogma that the constitution carries 
slavery there; (8) the admission of Kansas as a free State; (9) 
protection to American industry, a Homestead law, a Pacific 
Railroad, Internal Improvement. 

The American party, under the title of " Constitutional Union," 
met at Baltimore, May 9, i860. Twenty States were repre- 
sented. John Bell, Tenn., was nominated for President, and 
Edward Everett, Mass., for Vice-President. Their only hope of 
success was in throwing the election into the House. The 
platform affirmed " the constitution of the country, the union of 
the States, and the enforcement of the laws." 

The campaign was vigorously conducted. There was much 
argument over the respective attitudes of the parties on the 
slavery question. On the part of Republicans spectacular 
features were introduced after the manner of the Harrison cam- 
paign of 1840. Mr. Lincoln was pictured as " The Rail Splitter" 
of the West, with telling effect among farmers and the industrial 
classes. As the campaign advanced and the hopelessness of the 
pro-slavery Democrats increased, they began to turn their atten- 
tion to the remedy which secession provided. The November 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 5(j9 

result was a choice of Republican electors from every free State, 
except New Jersey, which gave four for Lincoln and three for 
Douglas, and a consequent majority in the Electoral College. 
This led to prompt action on the part of South Carolina, whose 
Legislature was then (November) in session to choose electors. 
Instead of doing so that body called a State Convention, which, 
Dec. 17, i860, passed the first " Ordinance of Secession." 

THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS— Second Session. — Met 
Dec. 3, i860. Probably no session of Congress was ever called 
upon to meet so many new and grave propositions. Cer- 
tainly none had ever convened amid such serious surroundings. 
The only situation analogous to it was in 1832, when South 
Carolina attempted to nullify the Tariff Act of 1828. Then 
Jackson took strong ground in his message against the right of 
a State to contravene national legislation, and promptly applied 
enough force to hold the dissatisfied State to her place in the 
Union. Mr. Buchanan's message took the Jackson view of the 
situation, but when it came to applying coercive means, he 
doubted if a State's obedience could be compelled, for the reason 
that compulsion meant war, and war on a State was not author- 
ized by the constitution. 

This message, so disappointing to the Union sentiment of the 
country and so encouraging to the Secession sentiment, brought 
a stream of compromising efforts, prominent among which was 
one introduced by John J. Crittenden, Ky., re-establishing the 
old line of 36° 30' as a permanent constitutional boundary be- 
tween slave and free States. This did not meet the favor of the 
Republicans, and without their endorsement the pro-slavery 
Democrats refused to entertain it. 

Legislation was virtually suspended for a time to await the 
action of the " Peace Congress," which assembled in Washing- 
ton, Feb. 4, 1 86 1. This had been called at the request of the 
Legislature of Virginia (Jan. 19), and was composed of dele- 
gates from thirteen Free and seven Border States. It affirmed 
by a close vote the Crittenden proposition, and made several 
concessions, chiefly with a view of keeping the Southern border 
States from falling into the secession whirlpool, and of inducing 



570 BUILDING AND RULING THE REI'UBIJC. 

some of the less hasty cotton States to retrace their steps. Con- 
gress did not accept its measures, but passed what was known 
as the Douglas amendment to the constitution, which affirmed 
the popular sovereignty method of dealing with slavery in the 
Territories, and raised a guarantee of non-interference with slavery 
in the States. This amendment was never submitted to the 
States or people, owing to the rapid secession of the States and 
the beginning of hostilities. 

As the Southern States seceded (see below), their members of 
Congress withdrew. The Republican majority became strong 
in both Houses. Kansas was admitted as a free State under the 
Wyandot Constitution, Jan. 29, 1861. Other Territories, as 
Nevada, Colorado and Dakota, were organized, without mention 
of slavery, so as to avoid conflict with the Dred Scott decision. 
The Republican majority took advanced ground relative to the 
powers vested in the Constitution and Congress. The doctrine 
that this was a nation and not a league, and that a nation had a 
right to protect itself from within as well as without, took firm 
hold. The Tariff Act of March 2, 1861, which increased duties, 
affirmed the principle of protection. The kindred prin- 
ciple of Internal Improvement by the National government was 
so fully established as to be placed beyond future question by any 
party. Loans were authorized and an issue of Treasury notes 
ordered, thus carrying the implied powers of the Constitution 
to the limit which extreme necessity demanded. 

In February the Electoral count was made, showing 180 votes 
for Lincoln and Hamlin, 72 for Breckinridge and Lane, 39 for 
Bell and Everett, and 12 for Douglas and Johnson. Congress 
adjourned sine die, March 3, 1 861. 

SECESSION MOVEMENT.—SecQssion from the Union as 
a remedy for grievances, real or imaginary, had been made- 
familiar by that school of statesmen who regarded the Constitu- 
tion as in the nature of a compact between the States and Go\- 
ernment, and who insisted on a strict interpretation of that in- 
strument. They would tolerate no stretch of power on the part 
of the government, not even for the purpo.se of preservation, but 
claimed that in all matters of doubt the States should have the 



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PRESIDENTS FROM 1853 TO 1869. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 571 

benefit of it, and that where a grievance existed the State was to 
be the judge, preferring its own integrity and honor. The griev- 
ance now was that growth of anti-slavery sentiment in the coun- 
try made manifest in political form by the election of Lincoln, 
which would forever crush further hope of slavery extension 
and prove a standing menace to the institution as it existed in 
the States. 

South Carolina's call of a convention was the signal for simi- 
lar action throughout the South. The movement was rapid and 
concerted. It did not even hesitate at the responsibility of armed 
trial to insure success.* The Southern Congress met at Mont- 
gomery, Alabama, Feb. 4, 1861, delegates being present from 
seven seceded States. It formed the Government of the Con- 
federate States of America. Its Constitution was, in the main, 
the one it had repudiated, a clause recognizing slavery and one 
forbidding a protective tariff being the most radical differences. 
Officers were elected, a cabinet chosen, the machinery of inde- 
pendent government started, an attitude of war assumed. All 
government property was seized and confiscated, forts were 
erected, men were enlisted, equipped and drilled, and armies 
were actually on their feet, while the Congress and the States of 
the North were listlessly watching the unfolding of the terrible 
situation or wasting precious time in what proved to be idle 
schemes of compromise. 

XIX. 

LINCOLN'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1861 — March 3, 1865. 

Abraham Lincoln, III., President. Hannibal Hamlin, Me., 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

( I, July 4, 1861 — August 6, 1861 — Extra Session. 
Thirty-seventh Congress. \ 2» December 2, 1 861— July 17, 1862. 
[3, December i, 1862 — March 3, 1863. 

* For going and coming of the seceding States, see page 123. 



572 



Congress. 
Thirty-eighth Congress 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Sessions. 

[, December 7, 1863 — July 4, 1864. 
2, December 5, 1864 — March 3, l86S, 



ELECTORAL VOTE,'' 



States. 



Alabama 7 

Arkansas 2 

California 2 

Connecticut 4 

Delaware i 

Florida I 

Georgia 8 

Illinois 9 

Indiana il 

Iowa 2 

Kentucky 10 

Louisiana 4 

Maine 6 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts 1 1 

Michigan 4 

Minnesota 2 

Mississippi 5 

Missouri 7 

New Hampshire . . 3 

New Jersey 5 

New York 33 

North Carolina 8 

Ohio 21 

Oregon i 

Pennsylvania 25 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina .... 6 

Tennessee 10 

Texas 2 

Vermont 3 

Virginia 13 

Wisconsin 3 

Totals 237 



Republican. 



i 

> 






9 






4 






4 
6 


4 

6 




3 






3 






10 






II 


II 


II 


13 


13 


13 


4 


4 




12 


. , 


, . 


6 






8 


8 




8 






13 
6 


13 

6 


'I 


4 


4 




7 


. . ■ 




9 






5 


5 




7 


4 




35 


35 


35 


10 






23 


23 


23 


3 


3 




27 


27 


27 


4 
8 


4 




12 


. . 


, , 


4 






5 


5 




15 






5 


5 




303 


180 


180 



Democrat. 






3 

3 
10 



10 



Const. 
Union or Amer. 



72 



72 



15 

"39 



15 

"39 



* The popular vote was, Lincoln, 1,866,352 — 17 States, N. J. divided; Doug- 
las, 1,375,157 — I State, N. J., divided; Breckinridge, 845,763 — ii States; Bell, 
589,581—3 States. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 573 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State W. H. Seward, N. Y. 

Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase, Ohio. 

Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Pa. 

Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, Conn. 

Secretary of Interior Caleb P. Smith. 

Attorney-General Edward Bates, Mo. 

Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, Md. 

POLITICAL SITUATION.— ^h^n Lincoln came to Wash- 
ington to be inaugurated the Southern Confederacy was formed. 
Of it Alexander H. Stephens, its Vice-President, said, March 21, 
1861 : ''The new Constitution (Confederate) has put at rest for- 
ever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institu- 
tions — African slavery as it exists among us — the proper status 
of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the imme- 
diate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jeffer- 
son, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the ' rock upon which 
the old Union would split' . . . The prevailing ideas enter- 
tained by him (Jefferson) and most of the leading statesmen of 
the time were that slavery was a violation of the laws of nature, 
that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically, 
and that somehow or other it would prove evanescent and pass 
away. . . . Those ideas were fundamentally wrong. They 
rested on the assumption of the equality of the races. This was 
an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a govern- 
ment built on it * when the storm came and the wind blew it fell' 
Our new government rests on exactly the opposite idea. Its 
foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth 
that the negro is not the equal of the white man ; that slavery 
— subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal 
condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history 
of the world based on this great physical and moral truth." 

To convert this Confederacy of form into one of fact was the 
Southern cause. The condition was one of war already, so far 
as the South was concerned. There had been for some time a 
systematic transfer of government arms and munitions of war 
from Northern to Southern arsenals, and these had speedily sur- 
rendered to insurgent demands. The naval vessels had been 
scattered in remote foreign parts, and were not immediately 



574 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

available for either defensive or offensive purposes. The Federal 
soldiery within the Southern States had given up their forts ,and 
stations or wqtq besieged therein. National finance was con- 
fused, the Treasury empty, the credit worthless. Seceded States 
were being reinforced by the secession of others. Officers in 
the army, navy and in places of trust and power were resigning 
every day to join their fortunes with those of their States, to the 
consternation of the loyal members of the government and to 
the utter demoralization of all machinery and system. No of- 
ficial knew whom to confide in, how to organize, what to do. 
It seemed as if secession had tainted everything and undermined 
everything. Let Union effort take what shape it would, it was 
confused by the uncertainty of its surroundings, or balked by in- 
genious constructions of laws and Constitution. The logic of 
Attorney-General Black, which led to the conclusion that ** the 
Union must totally perish at the moment when Congress shall 
arm one part of the people against another for any purpose be- 
yond that of merely protecting the general government in the 
exercise of its proper Constitutional functions," had resulted in 
fatal hesitation on the part of the government and was to par- 
alyze it still w^orse. Add to all the real danger to life from 
deeply laid and widely ramified plots, and some faint idea of the 
situation may dawn, as President Lincoln was forced to see it on 
March 4, 1861. 

His inaugural was conservative, assuring to the Southern 
States that slavery would not be disturbed in the States if they 
would seek a peaceful remedy for their grievances, invited Con- 
stitutional amendments for the troubles, and closed : " In your 
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail 
jou. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. Vou have no oath registered in heaven -to destroy 
the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 
preserve, protect and defend it." 

The President proceeded to supply the Union garrison in Fort 
Sumter. This was what President Buchanan had hesitated to 
do, the Confederates having said they would regard it as a coer- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 575 

cive act. They began a bombardment of the fort, April 13, 
1 86 1, and on April 14, after a fire of thirty hours, the flag was 
lowered in surrender. This first overt act of rebellion, and this 
first triumph of civil war, disillusioned the country, and resent- 
ment took the place of conciliation. For a time Democrats and 
Republicans united in demanding sturdy measures, not only to 
wipe out insult to the flag, but to force the erring States into the 
restraints imposed by the Constitution and laws. Armed attack 
must be repelled, the majesty of law vindicated, the dignity of 
order conserved, the unity of the nation restored, the supreme 
strength of the government asserted throughout its jurisdiction, 
and all in the now necessarily armed and forceful way invited by 
the magnitude, vigor and determination of the attack. The issue 
thus joined was the Great American Rebellion of 1861 ; or, 
The Civil War in the United States of America. 

THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS— E^^x^. Session.— Called 
for July 4, 1 86 1. The President had promptly recognized the 
condition of civil war and called for 75,000 volunteers. These 
were plainly inadequate, for the Confederacy of seven seceded 
States had grown to eleven. The doubtful border States had 
become a raiding ground for Confederate forces. Armies, full}' 
equipped, strong in numbers, ably officered, fierce in determina- 
tion, were swarming into strategical places and centering on the 
Capital of the nation. Men must be had for defensive as well as 
offensive measures. Materials of war must also be provided — 
money, guns, ammunition, equipments. Hence this extra ses- 
sion, in which only the Northern and border States were repre- 
.sented. Both branches were Republican. The Senate stood 3 1 
Republicans, 1 1 Democrats, and 5 War Democrats ; the House 
106 Republicans, 42 Democrats and 28 War Democrats. The 
House organized by electing Galusha A. Grow, Pa., Republican, 
Speaker. Happily for the country, there was a strong prepon- 
derance of the Union element, and such prevalence of the liberal 
construction doctrines, in the presence of dire necessity, as freed 
energetic war measures from the tedious debates which they had 
hitherto provoked. The disastrous affair of Bull Run (July 21, 
1 861) proved an additional incentive to speedy and vigorous 



576 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

legislation, for it further disclosed the determination of the Con- 
federates, helped the Unionists to understand the magnitude of 
the force they had to meet, and proved the imminency of the 
danger which hung over the capital. 

The President was therefore empowered to call out 500,000 
volunteers, a national loan was authorized, appropriations were 
made for the army and navy, an act was passed for the punish- 
ment of conspiracy and for the confiscation of all property used 
against the government, and as a means for additional revenue 
an amended Tariff act was passed, Aug. 5, 1 861, which con- 
siderably increased the duties and contained distinctive protec- 
•tive features. The anti-war or peace Democrats interjected 
measures of negotiation and compromise into all the delibera- 
tions on war measures, but the hour for procrastination had 
passed, and it was not deemed expedient nor proper to further 
parley with armed, and thus far triumphant, rebellion. After 
resolutions pledging further men and money t(/) the administra- 
tion, should they become necessary to aid in the suppression of 
the rebellion and the execution of the laws, the Congress ad- 
journed, August 6, 1 86 1. 

THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS— Y\x?.\, Regular Session. 
— Met December 2, 1861. Like the preceding, this was a War 
Session. The Democrats had somewhat recovered from the 
shock occasioned by the firing on Sumter, and had drawn their 
lines sufficiently close to make a party issue of many of the 
most vigorous war measures. Over the question of" what to do 
with captured slaves ? " they took positive ground against the 
bills which were passed, forbidding the return of fugitives and 
declaring those free who were employed against the government 
and for insurrectionary purposes,* and so of the bill prescribing 

* This is not said of the pronounced War Democrats, who were in concert with 
the Republicans on active war measures, nor even of those who, in official position, 
used the privilege of a minority to freely and intelli^^ently criticise the acts of a ma- 
jority. It is said of those who sought to hold the organization and to commit it to 
a decided anti-war policy ; who even went so far as to encourage opposition to the 
war among their constituents, and keep up the spirit of the Confederates by aiding 
associations like the " Knights of the Golden Circle," " Sons of Liberty," etc., 
whose objects were to release prisoners of war, invite raids, engage in conspiracies 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 57-7 

the " Iron-Clad Oath," whose design was to exclude from gov- 
ernment service all who were engaged in rebellion or who sym- 
pathized with it. The session witnessed the passage of a bill 
giving public lands to the States for the endowment of Agricul- 
tural Colleges ; also the passage of the Homestead Bill, which 
had been so frequently before Congress since the formation of 
the Republican party. An increase in Tariff rates was made by 
the act of Dec. 24, 1861. Congress adjourned, July 17, 1862. 

THIRTY-SEVENTH COJVGRESS—SQCond Session.— Met 
Dec. I, 1862. A War Session, in the midst of national neces- 
sity more imperative than ever. Large appropriations were 
made for army and navy purposes. The Treasury was authorized 
to negotiate further loans. But ready money was scarce. There 
was no currency adequate to the huge transactions of the war, 
and none uniform. In this strait the Congress sanctioned a 
National (Greenback) Currency, after long and able discussion 
involving its constitutionality, the meaning of the power "to 
coin money and issue bills of credit," the inherent right of the 
government to protect itself, the analogy furnished by the old 
National Bank, the respective attitude of parties on the question 
from the beginning. 

Nor was the situation simplified when the question of more 
men came up. This involved the draft as a means of procuring 
soldiers, with all the technical objections which a strict construc- 
tion of the constitution gave rise to. The act which passed pro- 
voked the hostility of anti-war Democrats throughout the entire 
North, and in several States the Courts held it unconstitutional. 
Its enforcement in New York gave rise to the riots of July, 1863, 
which were only suppressed by armed interference of the Federal 
authorities. 

Another measure, made necessary by the exigency of the 
hour, was the act to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus. This also 
excited the opposition and enmity of all who wished to be free 
to vindicate the Confederate cause, either by writing or speaking 
in its favor, or by any other act short of actual enlistment under 

to resist drafts — as in New York^ — enlist men for the Southern army, and give aid 
and comfort to the enemy in various ways. 

37 



578 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

its banners. The peace Democrats vehemently opposed its pas- 
sage, and it was perhaps the most unpopular of the stringent 
war measures, saving always the draft act. Dec. 31, 1862, the 
act to admit West Virginia passed, which took effect June 19, 
1863. Congress adjourned sirte die^ March 3, 1863. 

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.— All the pledges of the free 
States were of an intent not to interfere with Slavery in the 
States where it existed. All the negotiations and compromises 
of 1 86 1 embraced the same idea. Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural, 
gave it out that Slavery in the States had nothing to fear from 
his administration, if the issue of disunion were not further, or 
violently, pushed. The anti-slavery sentiment was not essentially 
an abolition sentiment. Even the revulsion of feeling occasioned 
by the firing on Sumter had not served to lift it to the point of 
interference with the institution of Slavery within State Hmits. 

But the question of Slavery, ever complex, was, after the be- 
ginning of the war, more complicated than ever. It was forcing 
itself on the officers of the army at every step. In the field 
slavery was a part of the Confederate service, contributing to 
the strength of its armies, helping it to resist the Union troops, 
aiding it to win victories. It therefore was hostile, as much so 
as the armies themselves, or as cannon, muskets, ammunition, 
tents, stores, whose destruction war justified. 

This the Administration saw. But it saw other things too: 
(l) A probability of holding the doubtful Border States and 
making their allegiance firmer by compensating them for their 
slaves in case they abolished slavery. This the President recom- 
mended to Congress, March 2, 1862. It was approved, but 
not accepted by the Border States as being impracticable. In 
fact it met the opposition of the entire Democratic party. 

(2) He saw that to take any more decided step at that time 
would be to alienate the conservative anti-slavery sentiment of 
the Free States. That is, he did not yet regard the country as 
educated to the point of necessary or compulsory abolition. 

(3) He saw that if the rebellion were allowed to drag because 
of a want of energy on the part of the administration, or fear 
to cripple any and all the resources which helped to sustain it. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 579 

the mofe determined anti-slavery sentiment of the Free States 
would rise against him and demand abolition as necessary to 
the suppression of civil war. 

Congress had moved very cautiously, being content with a 
measure forbidding the return of fugitives, and one declaring 
free those slaves who were captured while aiding rebellion. 
General Fremont, in the Department of Missouri, had, Aug. 
31, 1 86 1, declared the slaves of rebels free, but the President 
overruled his order. General B. F. Butler, in Virginia, had 
declared slaves " contraband of war," and liable to confiscation. 
Most of the field officers were either returning them to -their 
masters, or hesitating about what to do with them. 

Rebellion was increasing in vigor, and slaves were part of 
that energy. By the laws of war the contraband property of 
the enemy is confiscate. By act of Congress " the property of 
persons engaged in treason or rebellion against the United 
States " was liable to seizure and confiscation. The time had 
come when the weapons of the enemy of whatever kind must be 
wrenched from his grasp, when the " Union must be saved with 
slavery," or, that failing, " without it." 

On Sept. 22, 1862, the President issued his proclamation to 
the effect that he would emancipate " all slaves within any State 
or designated parts of a State, the people whereof shall be in 
rebellion against the United States on the 1st day of January, 
1863." " If such sections are in good faith represented in Con- 
gress on that day, it shall be deemed conclusive evidence that 
such State and the people thereof are not in rebellion against the 
United States." 

No attention was paid to this. It was followed, Jan. i, 1863, 
by the celebrated Emancipation Proclamation, for which the 
country now seemed ready, " as a fit and necessary war measure 
for suppressing rebellion." It applied only to the States and 
portions of States actually in rebellion, and which were unrepre- 
sented in Congress, or were not in the possession of the Union 
armies. Two years afterwards (February i, 1865) the Thirteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution passed the Congress, and was 
ratified by three-fourths of the States, so as to become effective 



580 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

by Dec. i8, 1865. It is in almost the precise words of the his- 
toric ordinance of 1787 relative to the territory northwest of 
the Ohio, This amendment ended African slavery in the United 
States of America. 

THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS— YxxsX Session.— Met Dec. 
7, 1863. The House organi:^ed by electing Schuyler Colfax, 
Republican, Indiana, Speaker. The Senate contained 36 Re- 
publicans and 14 Democrats; the House 102 Republicans and 
83 Democrats. Nine of the latter were from the Border States. 
The Union Democrats had mostly gone entirely over to the 
Republicans. Some, however, had gone back into the regular 
Democratic organization, which was now pretty squarely on an 
anti-war basis. The session was prolific of war measures, on 
most of which party lines were strictly drawn. That which 
excited most bitter debate was the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law of 1850 by a vote of 27 to 12 in the Senate, and 86 to 60 
in the House. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution 
passed the Senate, but did not pass the House by the requisite 
two-thirds till the next session. Among the revenue bills 
were those creating a system of Internal Revenue by a tax on 
domestic manufactures, one imposing a tax on incomes over 
;g6oo which was very unpopular and short-lived, and one creat- 
ing the system of National Banks. All these were compara- 
tively new measures, justified by the condition of the country 
and a state of war, yet at variance with the strict construction 
notions on which the Democrats based a determined opposition. 
On June 30, the Tariff Act of 1864 was passed, which increased 
the rate of duties, and made them still more protective. Con- 
gress adjourned, July 4, 1864. 

ELECTION OF 1364.— The Republican National Conven- 
tion met at Baltimore, June 7, 1864, and renominated for Presi- 
dent, Abraham Lincoln,* 111., and for Vice-President, Andrew 
Johnson, Tenn. The nomination of the latter was a recognition 
of the Union men of the South. The platform : (i) Pledged 

* Mr. Lincoln had inclined to the one term idea, but by advanced endorsement 
for a second term among the Legislatures of the Northern States, as in the case of 
Jackson for his second term, he concluded to stand. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 581 

the party to aid the government in the suppression of rebellion. 
(2) NtD peace except one based on unconditional surrender of all 
armed rebels. (3) An amendment to the Constitution pro- 
hibiting slavery. (4) Thanks to soldiers for maintaining the flag. 
(5) Approval of the course of administration. (6) No vio- 
lation of the laws of war. (7) Favored foreign immigration 
and a Pacific Railroad. (8) The national faith pledged to the 
redemption of the public debt must be kept inviolate. (9) Ap- 
proval of the *' Monroe doctrine." 

The Democratic National Convention met at Chicago, Aug. 
29, 1864, and nominated for President, George B. McClellan, 
N. J., and for Vice-President, George H. Pendleton, Ohio. The 
convention was dominated by the reactionary or peace wing of the 
party, called by their opponents ** Copperheads." The platform 
announced: (i) Adhesion to the Union under the Constitution. 
(2) Demanded, *' after four years of failure to restore the Union by 
war," a cessation of hostilities and a peace convention. (3) 
Denounced military interference with elections as revolutionary. 
(4) Objects of the party are to preserve the Union and the 
rights of the States unimpaired. (5) Denunciation of the war 
measures in general. (6) Administration denounced for disre-- 
gard of duty to prisoners of war. (7) Sympathy of the party 
for soldiers and sailors. 

A Convention of Radical Men met at Cleveland, Ohio, May 
31, 1864, and nominated John C. Fremont, Cal., for President, 
and John C. Cochrane, N.- Y., for Vice-President. They adopted 
a platform nearly like that of the Republicans, but with a clause 
endorsing the one term principle. This was designed to head 
off the renomination of Lincoln, who had given offense to them 
by his tardy action respecting slavery. The candidates with- 
drew in favor of the Baltimore nominees. 

The position taken by the Democrats in their platform to the 
effect that the war was a failure, and that its cessation was 
demanded by the country, presented an issue which the Repub- 
licans met squarely, and with confidence. The result was a 
popular verdict in their favor, not only in the Presidential but in 
the Congressional contests. 



582 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS— Second Session,— Met 
Dec. 5, 1864. Necessary war measures were passed, the -Thir- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitution by the House, and the 
bill creating the Freedmen's Bureau. The status of the rebellious 
States came up in the proceedings attending the electoral count 
in February. Both Houses regarded them in such a condition 
as to make a valid election for President within their borders 
and under our laws impossible. Their vote was, therefore, not 
considered. The count showed 212 votes for Lincoln and John- 
son, and 21 for McClellan and Pendleton. Congress adjourned 
sine die, March 3, 1865. On March 4, Lincoln and Johnson 
were sworn into office. 

XX. 

LINCOLN'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION, AND 
JOHNSON'S. 

March 4, 1865 — March 3, 1869. 

Abraham Lincoln, III., President. Andrew Johnson, Tenn., 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Thirtt-ninth Congress. / '' ^ecember 4, 1865-Jiily 28, 1866. 
(^ 2, December 3, 1866-March 3, 1867. 

fi, March 4, 1867-March 30, 1867. "| Extra ses- 
2, July 3, 1867-july 20, 1867. \ sion with 

3, November 21, 1867-Dec. 2, 1867. J recesses. 
I 4, December 2, 1867-July 27, 1868. 
[5, December 7, 1868-March 3, 1869. 

ELECTORAL VOTE."" 

Republican. Democrat. 

Abraham Andrew Geo. B. Geo. H. 

Basis of Lincoln, Johnson, McClellan, Pendleton, 

States. 127,381. Vote. 111. Tenn. N.J. Ohio. 

■{■Alabama 6 8 

fArkansas 3 5 

California 3 5 5 5 

Coiinecticut 4 6 6 6 

Delaware i 3 . ,* .. 3 3 

f Florida i 3 

* The popular vote was : Lincoln, 2,216,067 — 22 States; McClellan, 1,808,725 
— 3 States ; not voting, 1 1 States. 

f In a state of rebellion. Not voting. 81 votes lost. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



583 



Electoral Vote — Continued. 



Basis of 
States. 127,381. 

^Georgia 7 

Illinois 14 

Indiana 1 1 

Iowa 6 

Kansas I 

Kentucky 9 

^Louisiana 5 

Maine 5 

Maryland 5 

Massachusetts 10 

Michigan 6 

Minnesota 2 

■^Mississippi 5 

Missouri 9 

Nevada I 

New Hampshire. . . . 

New Jersey 

New York 

*North Carolina.. . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 24 

Rhode Island 2 

*South Carolina. , . 4 

■^Tennessee 8 

*Texas 4 

Vermont 3 

* Virginia 8 

West Virginia 3 

Wisconsin 6 



3 

5 
31 

7 
19 

I 



Totals 242 

THE CABINET. 



Republican. 



Democrat 



Vote. 
9 
16 

13 

8 



7 
7 
7 

12 
8 
4 
7 

3 
5 

7 

9 
21 

3 
26 

4 

6 

10 

6 

5 
10 

5 
8 



Abraham 

Lincoln, 

111. 



Andrew Geo. B. Geo 
Johnson, McClellan, Pendl 



II 

2 

5 
33 

21 

3 
26 



Tenn. 

16 
13 



N.J. 



II 



Ohio. 



33 

21 

3 

26 



H. 

eton. 



I vacancy. 



314 



Secretary of State W. H. Seward, N. Y Continued. 

• Secretary of Treasury. . . . Hugh McCullough, Ind. 

Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Pa Continued. 

Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, Conn " 

Secretary of Interior James Harlan, Iowa. 

Attorney-General James Speed, Ky Continued. 

Postmaster-General William Dennison, Ohio.. . " 

THE INAUGURAL.— Gettysburg, July 2, 3, 4, 1863, turned 
the tide of rebellion. It had fallen backwards, and was, March 
4, 1865, hemmed in and under control. The President's in- 
augural was full of gratitude for past success, of hope for final 
success, and of that kindliness of spirit and gentleness of disposi- 



* In a state of rebellion. Not voting. 81 votes lost. 



584 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tion which had gotten to be accepted as characteristic of the 
man and official. In it he said, " With mahce toward none, 
with charity for all, with firmness in right, as God has given 
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are 
in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphans — to do 
all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves 
and with all nations." 

On the 9th of April, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General 
Grant, at Appomattox Court-House, the remnant of the Con- 
federate army, 26,000 men, and the great rebellion was practically 
ended. On the night of April 14 (Good Friday), 1865, President 
Lincoln was shot by J. Wilkes Booth, and died on the morning 
of the 15th. On the same day Andrew Johnson was sworn in 
as his successor. 

RECONSTRUCTION.— It was hoped by North as well as 
South that President Lincoln had mapped in his mind a policy 
of reconstruction. But such did not appear. The exact rela- 
tion a seceded State, which had failed to establish its secession 
by force, occupied toward the other States, and how it could be 
reinstated, were new and delicate points, requiring the skill of a 
master to handle. Much more was involved. The place of the 
negroes, now free and citizens, had to be considered. The North- 
ern mind inclined to a probationary period for the rebellious 
States, during which time they could adjust themselves to a new 
situation, give guarantees, through provisional governments that 
they would assure freedom to the negroes, wipe out their obnox- 
ious codes, repeal their secession laws, rescind their adhesion to 
the Confederacy, and, repledged and prepared anew, re-enter the 
Union, on the condition of any fully equipped State, with the 
consent of Congress. 

President Johnson signalized his administration by adopting a 
hastier policy of reconstruction, one which imposed no probation 
on the States, but invited them to reform State governments and 
apply for admission at once. He belonged to the old South- 
ern school of strict interpreters or State Rights, and his policy 
invited the supremacy in the new States of the most active sup- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 585 

porters of rebellion. This policy did not receive the support of 
the Republican party. An antagonism therefore sprang up be- 
tween the administration and the majority party, which was 
fiercer even than that between Tyler and the Whigs. The Presi- 
dent however forced his measures as best he could, and carried 
with him what was known at the time as the "Amnesty senti- 
ment " of the country and also the Democratic sentiment. He 
was squarely outside of the party which had elected him Vice- 
President, from the very beginning of his term as President. 

THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS— Y\x?.\. Session.— Met Dec. 
4, 1865. The favorable turn of the rebellion, and the emphatic 
endorsement of Lincoln's administration by the country, had 
greatly increased the Republican majority in both Houses of Con- 
gress. The Senate stood 40 Republicans and 1 1 Democrats ; the 
Plouse 145 Republicans and 40 Democrats. The House organ- 
ized by re-electing Schuyler Colfax, Republican, Ind., Speaker. 

The passage of an amended Freedmen's Bureau bill drew from 
the President a veto, in which he foreshadowed his intention of 
opposing reconstruction legislation where it involved favors to 
the negroes, and, in general, until the whites, who were most 
concerned, were again represented in Congress. Another bill, 
similar in terms, providing for the education and military pro- 
tection of the negro race, was passed in July. This was also 
vetoed, on the ground that the civil courts were open for their 
protection, and that the matter was one entirely within the con- 
trol of the States. It became a law over the veto. 

The passage of the Civil Rights bill, in March, which was de- 
signed to secure to the negroes some of the rights of citizenship 
by enabling them to enforce their contracts in the United States 
Courts, was vetoed, on the ground that it was an attempt to con- 
fer citizenship on men just released from bondage and overrode 
the State laws and State tribunals. Though the bill was passed 
over the President's veto, the Congress proceeded to clarify the 
question of citizenship by passing the Fourteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution, June 16, 1866, which became operative, July 
28, 1868. This measure the President also opposed, as did the 
Democrats. The Homestead laws were extended to public 



586 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

lands in the South, the army was reduced, some internal taxes 
were abolished. Congress adjourned, July 28, 1866. 

THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS— Second Session. — Met 
Dec. 3, 1866. The President's attitude to the majority in Con- 
gress had become hostile and defiant. By his vetoes of Con- 
gressional enactments he had given proof of his intention to re- 
duce the power of Congress over the work of Reconstruction to 
a minimum. By his repeated proclamations to the Southern 
States he had as fully shown that he intended to make the work 
of Reconstruction as purely an executive one as he could, and 
this though his attention and that of the country had been 
called, by an address of the Republican National Committee, to 
the fact that no provisions 'existed in the Constitution or outside 
of Congress for the re-establishment of States which had broken 
their allegiance by secession and failed to establish secession by 
force. 

The situation was not conducive to deliberate legislation. If 
the President was vindictive, the majority was retaliatory. More- 
over, fear began to dawn that if he carried his defiance much 
further it might end in an executive co2-iJ} de main on the very 
existence of the legislative branch of the government. Retalia- 
tive thus assumed the virtue of protective steps. A threat of 
impeachment was made by the appointment of a House com- 
mittee to take testimony. The time had not yet come for 
decisive action. - 

By act of July, 1862, the President had been empowered to 
extend amnesty to those who ceased to be rebellious. The 
President had used his power under this act to what was con- 
sidered an inordinate extent. In January, 1867, the act was re- 
pealed. He still continued his amnesty proclamations, claiming 
a right to do so under the Constitution. To prevent the possi- 
bility of his taking the advantage of Congress during a recess, 
the meetings of the next Congress were fixed so as to succeed 
each other immediately. This lasted only during his term of 
office. His claim to issue orders directly to the army was met 
by an act compelling him to issue them through the general in 
command. This was squeezed in with the Appropriation bill, 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 537 

SO that he could not veto it without defeating the whole measure. 
He vetoed the Nebraska act, which provided for the admission 
of that State on the condition that suffrage should exist without 
reference to race or color. This was passed over his veto, and 
Nebraska was admitted, March i, 1867. 

Hitherto the President had possessed one advantage. His in- 
clination was his policy of Reconstruction ; or, if policy he had, 
it was not so systematic as to prevent his forging ahead without 
much regard to legal forms and technical obstructions. The 
.Republican majority had all along been hampered by Constitu- 
tional difficulties and baffled by their party opponents and the 
Executive. But they had at last formulated a policy. It divided 
the States which had seceded into military districts, and placed 
each under an officer of the army, who was empowered to keep 
the peace and protect person and property until a State conven- 
tion could be chosen and a State government formed which re- 
cognized citizenship without regard to race, color or previous 
condition, and contained a ratification of the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Then only would 
Congress agree to readmit the State. This was the bill " To 
Provide Efificient Governments for the Insurrectionary States," 
and designed to secure to the country some of the fruits of the 
war, which, it was thought, the President was fast frittering 
away. It was passed, vetoed, and passed over the veto, March 
2, 1867. 

Here was a carefully outlined Congressional policy against a 
loose unsystematic Executive policy. To make the conflict 
sharper, the same day witnessed the passage of the Tenure of 
Office bill, also over the veto, by a strictly party vote in the 
Senate of 35 to ii, and in the House of 138 to 40. It made 
the Senate, which was a recognized part of the appointing power, 
a party also to removal from office by providing that the Presi- 
dent's removals during recess should not be final unless approved 
by the Senate, and that if appointees during recess were not ap- 
proved by the Senate, the old incumbent held his place. The 
design was to prevent wholesale removals during recess and the 
setting up of a Cabinet and Department officers who might fur- 



588 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ther frustrate the will of Congress. Violation of its provisions 
was declared a high misdemeanor. This somewhat original and 
summary work of Congress now went before the country for ap- 
proval or rejection, as did the conduct of the President. A 
Tariff act was passed March 2, 1867, which made the duties on 
wool and woollen goods highly protective. Congress adjourned 
sme die, March 3, 1867. 

FORTIETH CONGRESS— Y.^\.X2. Session.— Met March 4, 
1867, according to act passed at second session of Thirty-ninth 
Congress. The issue between the Congress and President had 
been carried into the Congressional campaign, and the result 
was a return of a Republican majority. The Senate stood 40 
Republicans to 14 Democrats, the House 138 Republicans to 
47 Democrats. House organized by re-electing Schuyler Col- 
fax, Republican, Indiana, Speaker. Positive legislation was not 
the design of the meeting. It was a session for the emergency, 
a policing of a critical situation, an overseeing of previous legis- 
lation, that it might be executed, at least not frustrated. The 
continuity of the session was secured by an adjournment on 
March 30, 1867, to meet July 3, 1867. A second adjournment was 
had July 20, to meet Nov. 21. A third adjournment was had 
Dec. 2, 1867. 

FORTIETH CONGRESS— First Regular Session!— Met 
Dec. 2, 1867. Before legitimate work could begin, the President 
renewed his contest by removing Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary 
of War, Feb. 21, 1868, and appointing Lorenzo Thomas in his 
place, contrary to the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act. 
The Senate resolved that " the President had no power to re- 
move the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to 
perform the duties of the office." On the 24th the President 
sent a message to the Senate claiming the right of removal on 
the ground that Stanton was an appointee of his predecessor, 
and was now holding only by sufferance, and that therefore he 
was not removing an appointee under the Tenure of Office Act. 

A resolution to impeach the President passed the House on 
the 24th, by a vote of 126 to 47. Articles were drawn bearing 
on his violation of the act, in question, which passed the House 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 589 

on March 2. On the 5th, the trial began, and lasted till May 
16, when a test vote was taken on the Eleventh Article, a 
leading one. The result was, for conviction, 35 Senators; for 
acquittal, 19 Senators, 14 of the latter being Democrats and 5 
Republicans. The Constitution requiring a two-thirds vote to 
convict, the verdict was acquittal on this article. On May 26, 
a vote was had on the first and second articles, with the same 
result. It being evident that conviction could not be had, no 
other votes were taken and the Court of Impeachment adjourned 
sine die. 

The political differences between the President and the Repub- 
lican party were not softened by the impeachment trial, yet sin- 
gularly enough the party did not suffer by its failure to convict, 
nor did the President cease to pursue his policy of Reconstruc- 
tion, save where he was hedged by Congress, till the end of his 
term, when he retired to his native State, quite restored to the 
favor of his old political associates, with whom he had broken 
on the questions which gave rise to the rebellion. 

Congress adjourned, July 27, 1868. 

ELECTION OF 1868.— The Republican National Conven- 
tion met at Chicago, May 20, 1868, and nominated Ulysses S. 
Grant, 111., for President, and Schuyler Colfax, Ind., for Vice- 
President. The platform (i) congratulated the country on the 
success of the reconstruction policy of Congress. (2) Approved 
of equal suffrage to all loyal men in the South, and of the doc- 
trine that it was a question properly belonging to the loyal States. 
(3) No repudiation of the National promises to pay. (4) Equal- 
ization and reduction of taxation. (5) Reduction of interest on 
National debt, and gradual payment of same. (6) Improvement 
of our credit. (7) Denounced the corruptions of the Johnson 
administration, and urged economy. (8) Lincoln'.s death re- 
gretted; Johnson's treachery denounced. (9) Protection of the 
rights of naturalized citizens. (10) Honor to the soldiers. (11) 
Encouragement of foreign immigration. (12) Sympathy for all 
oppressed people struggling for their rights ; commendation of 
those who served in the Rebellion, for their co-operation in 
securing good government in the South. 



590 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The Democratic National Convention met at New York, July 
14, 1868, and nominated for President, Horatio Seymour, N. Y., 
and for Vice-President, Francis P. Blair, Mo. The platform (i) 
recognized the question of secession and slavery as settled by 
the war. (2) Demanded immediate restoration of the Southern 
States, and the settlement of the question of suffrage by the 
States themselves. (3) Amnesty for all past offences. (4) Pay- 
ment of the public debt in lawful money, where coin is not called 
for. (4) Equal taxation; one currency. (5) Pxonomy; abolition 
of the Freedmen's Bureau ; a Tariff for revenue, with incidental 
Protection. (6) Reform of abuses in administration ; independ- 
ence of Executive and Judicial branches ; subordination of mil- 
itary to civil power. (7) Maintenance of the rights of naturalized 
citizens. (8) General arraignment of the -Republican party, and 
gratitude to Johnson for ** resisting the aggressions of Congress." 

The campaign was an active one. The leading topics were 
the Reconstruction measures of the Republican party, and equal 
suffrage. The latter was a new question, given prominence by 
the condition of the freedmen, and by the probability that they 
would not be able to maintain their rights as citizens without 
the ballot. It may be said that the verdict of the campaign led 
to the proposal and adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. 
Grant's apothegm, " Let us have Peace," did much to tone the 
severities of a campaign which would else have been very bitter, 
owing to the hostility of the Republicans toward the Adminis- 
tration. And as to the merits of the issue between the Congress 
and President — that is, as to whether the Congress or President 
had a right to fix the terms on which a revolting State could be 
readmitted — the verdict was in favor of Congress and its plan of 
approving of the Constitution of the applicant States, just as in 
case of Territories when they first applied for admission. The 
November result was a decided Republican victory. 

FORTIETH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 7, 
1868. The leading political measure was the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution, which conferred the right of suffrage 
on all citizens, without distinction of " race, color, or previous 
condition of servitude." It passed Feb. 25, 1869, and by March 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 591 

30, 1870, was ratified by three-fourths of all the States. In Con- 
gress it was a distinctive party measure, drawing full Democratic 
opposition. Before the country, it met with a conservative Re- 
publican opposition, partly because it was regarded as too radical 
an advance, and partly because it got complicated with the ques- 
tion of amnesty, as advocated by Mr. Greeley and a school of 
statesmen who thought that " universal amnesty " ought to pre- 
cede, and be a consideration for, " universal suffrage." 

The Electoral count showed 214 votes for Grant and Colfax, 
and 80 for Seymour and Blair. A question was raised over the 
9 votes of Georgia, but as they did not affect the result, it was 
not urged. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1869. Grant 
and Colfax were sworn into office on March 4. 

XXL 
GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1869 — March 3, 1873. 
Ulysses S. Grant, III., President. Schuyler Colfax, Ind., 

Vice-President. 



Congresses. Sessians. 

{I, March 4, 1869- April 10, 1869, extra session. 
2, December 6, 1869-July 15, 1870. 
3, December 5, 1870-March 3, 1871. 

{I, March 4, 1871-April 20, 1871, extra session. 
2, December 4, 1871-June 10, 1872. 
3, December 2, 1872-March 3, 1873. 

ELECTORAL VOTE,'' 

Republican. Democrat. 

Basis of Ulysses S. Schuyler Homtio Sej'- Francis P. 

States. 127,381. Vote. Grant, 111. Colfax, Ind, naour, N. Y. Blair, Mo, 

Alabama.. 6 8 8 8 

Arkansas 3 5 5 5 

California 3 5 5 5 

Connecticut 4 6 6 6 

Delaware I 3 .. .. 3 3 

Florida 13 3 3 .. .. . 

Georgia 7 9 »• •• 9 9 

Illinois 14 16 16 16 

* Popular vote— Grant, 3,015,071—26 States; Seymour, 2,709,613— 8 States j 
not voting, 3 States. 



592 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



Republican. 



Democrat. 



Basis ot 

States, 127,381. Vote. 

Indiana 11 13 

Iowa 6 8 

Kansas I 3 

Kentucky 9 II 

Louisiana 5 7 

Maine 5 7 

Maryland 5 7 

Massachusetts lo 12 

Michigan 6 8 

Minnesota 2 4 

*Mississippi 5 7 

Missouri 9 li 

Nebraska i 3 

Nevada i 3 

New Hampshire.... 3 5 

New Jersey 5 7 

New York 31 33 

North Carolina 7 9 

Ohio 19 21 

Oregon i 3 

Pennsylvania 24 26 

Rhode Island .*' 2 4 

South Carolina .... 4 6 

Tennessee 8 10 

*Texas 4 6 

Vermont 3 5 

♦Virginia 8 lO 

West Virginia 3 5 

Wisconsin 6 8 

Totals 243 317 



Ulysses S. Schuyler 
Grant, 111. Colfax, Ind. 



12 

8 
4 

II 
3 
3 
5 



9 
21 

26 

4 

6 

10 



214 



12 

8 
4 

II 
3 
3 
5 



26 

4 

6 

10 



5 

5 
8 

214 



Horatio Sey- 
mour, N. Y. 



7 
33 



Francis P. 
Blair. Mo. 



7 
33 



80 



80 



THE CABINET, 

Secretary of State E. B. Washburne, 111. 

Secretary of Treasury Geo. S. Boutwell, Mass. 

Secretary of War John A. Rawlins, 111. 

Secretary of Navy Adolph E. Borie, Pa. 

Secretary of Interior Jacob D. Cdx, Ohio. 

Attorney-General E. R. Hoar, Mass. 

Postmaster-General J- A. J. Creswell, Md. 



FORTY-FIRST CONGRESS— Extra Session.— Met March 
4, 1869, with a very large Republican majority in both branches. 
The Senate stood 58 Republican, 10 Democrat, and 8 vacancies; 
the House, 149 Republican, 64 Democrat, and 25 vacancies; 
Mississippi, Texas, Virginia and Georgia not being represented. 
The House organized by electing James G. Blaine, Me., Speaker. 



* These States not yet readmitted. 23 votes lost. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 593 

This brief session was made interesting by a strictly party 
struggle over the admission of Texas, Virginia and Mississippi, 
before they had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Con- 
stitution. On April 10 a bill passed which required them to 
submit their constitutions as they stood to the people, and their 
Legislatures to ratify both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments, after which they would be readmitted. The extra session 
adjourned April 10, 1869. 

FORTY-FIRST CONGRESS— Y'lrst Regular Session.— Met 
December 6, 1869. The lot of President Grant had not thus 
far been a happy one. Unlike his predecessor, he had no policy 
of Reconstruction aside from the acts of Congress, and these he 
declared he would enforce, on the principle that the best way 
to secure the repeal of., such as were objectionable was to show 
their defects by actual and literal enforcement. But in this he 
was largely headed off by a condition of affairs in the late rebel- 
lious States, which was then attributed to the mistaken policy 
of President Johnson. From whatever cause, a party arose in 
the Southern States which prided in the name of " Unrecon- 
structed " and " Irreconcilable." It opposed the Reconstruction 
acts of Congress, and especially the Fourte^th and Fifteenth 
Amendments to the Constitution. Further, many Northern 
men had settled in Southern States. These, being in favor 
with the negroes, and naturally supporters of the government, 
gained a control of local politics which made them enemies of 
the "Unreconstructed." They were denounced as "Carpet- 
Baggers," and the State governments they erected and supported 
as " Carpet-Bag Governments." But as they were operating 
under color of local law, and insisting on rights for the citizen 
which the Constitution plainly gave him, they could hardly be 
ousted by regular forms. Ousted they must be, however. The 
plan of terrorizing the negroes was hit upon. This was perfected 
and carried out by those secret organizations which became 
known as the Ku-Klux-Klan. Their operations were so effective as 
not only to intimidate the negroes but to drive out the Northern 
immigrants. This achieved, the doctrine of "a white man's gov- 
ernment" became popular, and under it the regime of the respec- 
38 



594 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tive States passed back into the hands of those who had made^ 
supported and controlled them before the rebellion. 

The operations of the Ku-Klux-Klan had not only been 
locally violent, but defiant of the Reconstruction acts of Con- 
gress. Hence the President found his authority practically ig- 
nored. All the time, too, questions arose as to the constitution- 
ality of the Reconstruction acts. These occasioned delays and 
invited dangers. In the latter part of 1869 the Supreme 
Court came to his assistance and greatly strengthened his hands 
by a decision to the effect " that Congress had the power to re- 
establish the relations of any rebellious State to the Union." 
This decision sustaining the policy of Congress and the Republi- 
can majority modified the tone of the Democrats, and in a great 
measure changed their purpose to make Reconstruction a central 
party feature. 

The above situation gave rise to the Enforcement act, passed 
May 31, 1870, by a party vote, which endowed the President all 
needed powers to protect the freedmen and punish the perpetra- 
tors of outrages against white and black. Enforcement of this 
act did much to awaken Southern sentiment to the extent and 
danger of the " Klan" and to correct its abuses.. It fell into dis- 
repute, but was succeeded by other more open and ingenious, 
yet not less effective, means of intimidation, some of which took 
the shape of " Rifle Clubs," the " White League," and so on, alt 
of which were harder to meet by legal processes than the more 
violent '' Klan." 

Before the close of this session the halting States of Virginia,. 
Georgia, Texas and Mississippi had complied with the conditions 
of reconstruction and were readmitted. This practically com- 
pleted the work of reconstruction so far as the States were con- 
cerned ; that is, they had complied with the forms of law, but 
much remained to be done to insure equitable enforcement of 
law. By July 15, 1870, the date on which Georgia was received, 
after hanging back with her ratification of the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment, the happy spectacle of a restored Union was again pre- 
sented, though the votes of Arkansas and Louisiana were not 
received on account of technical objections in 1872. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 595 

The other leading poHtical acts of the session were one to 
enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, and one to amend the naturaH- 
zation laws. The latter law made penal the issue of fraudulent 
naturalization papers, and authorized Federal supervisors of Con- 
gressional elections in cities of over 20,000 inhabitants. The 
Democrats opposed it on the ground that it was unconstitutional ; 
the Republicans favored it on the charge of frauds in New York 
by which the State had been carried for Seymour. They used 
with effect the language of Horace Greeley that " more votes 
had been cast for Seymour in one of the warehouse wards of 
the city than there were men, women, children, cats and dogs 
in it." 

In March, 1870, the Constitutionality of the Legal Tender 
Act of 1862 came before the Supreme Court as newly organized. 
It was decided to be constitutional. This was a partisan issue 
from beginning to end. The Republicans pleaded absolute 
necessity as a support for the law ; the Democrats claimed that 
it was an inexcusable stretch of constitutional powen The 
former were consistent with that liberal interpretation of the 
Constitution on which they based their ideas of Internal Im- 
provement, Protection to American Industries, and scores of 
measures relating to war and reconstruction. The latter were 
hardly so consistent, for very many of them, when members of 
the Confederate Congress, had for reasons of imperative necessity 
advocated the issue of similar money, and that too, with the 
" promise to pay " extended to a period beyond which the inde- 
pendence of the Confederacy should be recognized. 

The decision, notwithstanding its opposition, soon won popu- 
larity, and greatly increased the national credit. The popular- 
ized " Greenback " soon after became the banking capital of a 
new party. The Tariff Act of July 14, 1870, had the effect 
of greatly enlarging the free list. Congress adjourned, July 15, 
1870. 

FORTY-FIRST CONGRFSS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
5, 1870. Reconstruction being completed in form, all the States 
were represented for the first time since 1861. The Senate stood 
61 Republicans; 13 Democrats; the House^ 172 Republicans; 71 



596 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Democrats. The President's message advocated the annexation 
of San Domingo. This gave rise to a bitter opposition on the 
part of Charles Sumner, which took the shape of direct attack 
on the administration. A commission was appointed which 
reported favorably, and the matter was dropped. 

A supplement to the enforcement act was passed, Feb. 28, 
1 87 1. It incurred the usual Democratic opposition, and was 
passed by a strict party vote. It extended the power of super- 
visors and marshals, and gave the Federal Courts jurisdiction 
of cases arising out of violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. 
On March 3 the first civil service act in the history of the 
government was passed. Under it a commission was appointed, 
whose recommendations were not cordially received. Congress 
adjourned sine die, March 3, 187 1. 

FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS— Y^^trd. Session. — Met 
March 4, 1871. The Republicans had suffered somewhat in 
their representation. The Senate stood, Republicans, 57 ; Demo- 
crats, 17; House, Republicans, 138; Democrats, 103. House 
organized by re-electing James G. Blaine, Me., Speaker. 

The leading political act was that of April 20, 187 1, known 
as the Ku-Klux Act. It was aimed directly at the secret organ- 
izations existing in Southern States, which could not be effectually 
reached under the enforcement acts of the previous session. 
Indeed, these acts were proving weak in all respects, and in 
view of the opposition they were meeting with, their propriety 
was beginning to be questioned. Congress adjourned, April 20, 
1871. 

FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS— Yirst Regular Session.— 
Met Dec. 4, 1871. This session gave rise to two acts, both of 
which became noteworthy. The first was The Amnesty Bill. 
In its earliest shape it was a Democratic measure, formulated so 
as to secure the influence of Mr. Greeley, editor of the New 
York Tribune, soon to be the Democratic candidate for President. 
It was baffled by the Republicans for a long time by amend- 
ments adding Mr. Sumner's Supplementary Civil Rights Bill. 
But it finally passed. May 22, 1872. Its effect was to remove 
the disabilities imposed by Sec. 3 of 14th Amendment to the 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 597 

Constitution, from all but about 350 participants in the rebel- 
lion.* 

The second was a Supplementary Enforcement act. The 
former acts of Enforcement, including the Ku-Klux act, were 
not strengthening the hands of the Executive in preserving order 
and securing the rights of citizens, as they were designed to. 
The Democrats were squarely opposed to them, and so was a 
strong minority within the Republican ranks. It became a 
question whether the Congress should retreat or experiment fur- 
ther with a doubtful question. A majority sentiment favored 
another trial. Consequently the bill of June 10, 1872, was 
passed, which gave any citizen deprived of his rights access to 
the Federal courts, made it a penal offense to deprive, or con- 
spire to deprive, any citizen of his rights under the amendments, 
placed the United States troops at the call of the States to sup- 
press conspiracies, and further declared such conspiracies rebel- 
lions, to be suppressed by Federal force if the States failed- 
This Avas regarded as the last stretch of Constitutional power in 
time of peace, even by the advocates of the bill. If its effect 
was to hasten the final disintegration of the annoying, defiant 
and cruel " Ku-Klux-Klan," the same cannot be said of those 
more ingenious and popular methods of opposition which were 
relied on as supports of the idea of " A White Man's Govern- 
ment." The Tariff Act of June 6, 1872, made a material reduc- 
tion in duties and added largely to the free list Congress 
adjourned, June 10, 1872. 

ELECTION OF 1872. — The first party in the field was a new 
one, styling itself ** Liberal Republican." This misnomer origin- 
ated in Missouri, in 1870. A Liberal Republican would naturally 
be one who favored a liberal construction of the Constitution. 
But the new Liberal Republicans were those who thought the 
Republicans had already exceeded, in their legislation, the 
powers contained in the Constitution. They were therefore not 
so liberal as the Republicans, but stricter in their interpretations, 
sufficiently strict to draw the Democratic support, as we shall 

* Subsequently other acts removed these disabilities from all who participated in 
the rebellion, except Jefferson Davis. 



598 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

see. A considerable Republican sentiment had been inclining 
to this movement for some time. It was encouraged by the 
** General Amnesty " idea, advocated by Mr. Greeley and by 
others who were at the time called " Sentimentalists." The fail- 
ure of so many of the Reconstruction measures of Congress to 
bring about desired results, the opposition they all excited, the 
growing thought that they were of doubtful propriety, and even 
of doubtful constitutionality, considering that they had no 
longer the imperative necessity of war as a basis of vindication, 
further encouraged the movement. 

In 1870 the Republican party, then in control of the Legisla- 
ture of Missouri, split over the question of the removal of dis- 
abilities from Confederates, under the State Constitution. Those 
favoring removal, headed by B. Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz, 
called themselves Liberal Republicans ; those opposing removal 
accepted the name of Radical Republicans. The former tri- 
umphed. This was the nucleus around which kindred sentiment 
gathered throughout the country. It gained headway by acces- 
sions in several States, as Mr. Greeley and Mr. Fenton in New 
York, Curtin in Pennsylvania, Trumbull in Illinois, and Charles 
Francis Adams in Massachusetts. The Democrats in Congress 
had fostered the sentiment. In the spring of 1 87 1 there had 
been an actual fusion of the Liberal Republicans and Democrats 
in Ohio. The leaders denounced the Enforcement acts of Con- 
gress and the efforts of the administration to bring about Recon- 
struction under them. On the basis of a common feeling it was 
thought the Democratic party could be captured by the move- 
ment. A call was issued from Missouri, Jan. 24, 1872, for a 
National Convention of Liberal Republicans, at Cincinnati, on 
May I. It nominated Horace Greeley, N. Y., for President, and 
B. Gratz Brown, Mo., for Vice-President. The platform (i) re- 
cognized the equality of all men ; (2) pledged the party to 
Union, emancipation, enfranchisement, and to oppose the open- 
ing of any question settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Amendments ; (3) demanded the immediate removal 
of all disabilities ; (4) local self-government with impartial suf- 
frage, for the nation a return to the methods of peace ; (5) Thor- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 599 

-ough reform of the civil service, no President a candidate for re- 
election ; (6) modest revenue for all the needs of the government ; 
on the matter of a tariff, the question relegated to the people of 
the Congressional districts for discussion ; (7) maintenance of 
public credit, return to specie payments, honor for the soldier, 
no more land grants to railroads, fair dealing with foreign 
powers. 

The Republican National Convention met at Philadelphia, 
June 5, 1872, and renominated for President Ulysses S. Grant, 
III, and nominated for Vice-President Henry Wilson, Mass. Its 
platform (i) pointed, as the result of Republican policy, to a 
suppressed rebellion, emancipation, equal citizenship, universal 
suffrage, no punishment of men for political offences, a humane 
Indian policy, a Pacific railroad, public lands freely given to ac- 
tual settlers, protected immigration, uniform national currency^ 
high national credit, careful collection and expenditure of rev- 
enue, large reduction of taxes and of public debt; (2) enforcement 
of the new amendments to Constitution; (3) enjoyment of civil 
and political liberty by all, no discrimination as to citizenship on 
account of race, color or previous condition ; (4) an improved civi] 
service; (5) no more land grants to corporations, but free homes 
for the people ; (6) gradual reduction of the public debt. Tariff 
for protection ; (7) honor to soldiers and sailors, abolition of 
franking privilege, reduction in rate of postage, approval of the 
administration, repudiation denounced, additional rights for 
women, amnesty approved, respect for the rights of States. 

The Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore, July 
9, 1872. By pre-arrangement and with the hope of triumph 
through the Republican schism it accepted the platform and 
nominees of the Liberal Republicans, and thus stood fully com- 
mitted to " emancipation and enfranchisement, and to oppose any 
reopening of the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Four- 
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution," and to 
the further doctrine " that it is tl^e duty of the government to 
mete out exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color or 
persuasion, religious or political." 

A Straight-out Democratic National Convention met at Louis- 



goo BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

ville. Ky., Sept. 3, 1872, and nominated for President Charles 
O'Conor, N. Y., and for Vice-President John Quincy Adams, 
Mass. The platform was a plea for the rights of the States and 
a repudiation of the Baltimore Convention as a betrayal of the 
Democratic party " into a false creed and a false leadership." 

The Temperance, or Prohibition, party met in National Con- 
vention, for the first time as a nominating body, at Columbus, 
Ohio, Feb. 22, 1872, and nominated for President James Black, 
Pa., for Vice-President John Russell, Mich. The platform de- 
clared that as all political parties had proved unwilling to adopt an 
adequate policy on the question of traffic in intoxicating drinks; 
therefore (i) the party pledges itself to the principles of the 
Declaration and Constitution ; (2) that effective legal prohibition, 
State as well as national, is the only means of suppressing traffic 
in intoxicants; (3) that existing party competition for the liquor 
vote is a peril to the nation; (4) dissuasion from the use of in- 
toxicants, competency, honesty and sobriety as qualifications for 
office, no removals from office for political opinion, prevention 
of corruption and encouragement of economy, direct vote of 
the people for President, a sound national currency, redeemable 
in gold, labor reform, suffrage without regard to sex, fostering 
of the common schools. 

The campaign was peculiar in every respect. The Republi- 
cans were sanguine, and scarcely needed to use ordinary cam- 
paign energies. The Democrats were cold toward their nominee, 
and mistrustful of the situation from the start. The Liberal 
Republicans bore the " heat and burden " of the day, their can- 
didate even taking the stump, or rather making long railroad 
jaunts for the purpose of meeting with and inspiring his 
admirers. 

The November result was not a realization of Liberal Repub- 
lican hopes. They had not captured the Democratic party. 
The strength they brought to that party was far more than off- 
set by Democratic desertions to the Republicans or outright re- 
fusals to vote. Nor was it any more a realization of Democratic 
hopes. The expected profit from Republican schism was not 
forthcoming at the polls. " Fusion had resulted in confusion,** 
was wittily said of the after-election situation. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 601 

FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS — Second Session.— Met 
Dec. 2, 1872. An interesting measure of the session was the 
creation of the Credit MobiHer commission by the House. It 
was created at the instance of RepubHcans to inquire into the 
truth of charges made against prominent men during the cam- 
paign by Democratic orators. The commission, consisting of 
two RepubHcans, one Liberal RepubHcan, and two Democrats, 
made a full investigation and practically exonerated the mem- 
bers charged, except Oakes Ames and James Brooks, who re- 
ceived the condemnation of the House. 

The Franking privilege was abolished, the President's salary 
raised to ;^50,ooo, and the salary of Senators and Representatives 
to ;^7,500. This was the offensive " salary grab " which met 
with such condemnation as to defeat many of the members who 
participated in its passage. It was speedily repealed. 

The electoral count in February showed 286 votes for Grant 
and Wilson. Mr, Greeley died in November. The 66 Demo- 
cratic electors therefore voted for other persons. Of these 42 
voted for Thomas A. Hendricks, Ind., for President, with 24 
scattering. Three of the scattering were for Greeley. They 
were rejected. B. Gratz Brown received 47 for Vice-President, 
with 19 scattering. A grave question arose over the vote of 
Louisiana and Arkansas. Two sets of Returning Boards existed 
in these States, each of which had forwarded returns. The re- 
sult was that both were rejected, and these two States lost their 
vote. 

Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1873. On March 4 
Grant and Wilson were sworn into office. 

XXII. 
GRANTS SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 
March 4, 1873— March 3, 1877. . 
Ulysses S. Grant, III., President. Henry Wilson, Mass., 

Vice-President. 

Congresses. Sessions. 

Forty-third Congress. | i' December i, 1873-June 23, 1874. 
\ 2, December 7, 1874-March 3, 1875. 

Forty fourth Congress / ^' December 6, 1875-Auaust 15, 1876. 
l^ORTY FOURTH (^ONGRESS. i ^^ December 4, 1876-March 3, 1877. 



602 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



ELECTORAL VOTE^ 









Repub 


ican. 


Lib. Republican. 




Ulysses 
S. Grant, 


Henry 


Horace B. Gratz 




Basis of 




Wilson, 


Greeley, Brown, 


States. 


131.425. 


Vote. 


111. 


Mass. 


N. Y. Mo. 


Alabama 


.... 8 


10 


10 


10 




Arkansas .... 


4 


6 






. . Not counted. 


California 


4 


6 


6 


6 




Connecticut . . 


4 


6 


6 


6 




Delaware .... 


. . . . I 


3 


3 


3 




Florida 


2 


4 


4 


4 


( 6 for Brown. 


Georgia 


.... 9 


II 


•• 


•• 


\ 2 for Perkins, Dem., Ga. 
( 3 for Greeley (not counted) 


Illinois 


....19 


21 


21 


21 


. . • 


Indiana 


....13 


15 


15 


15 


. . 


Iowa 


Q 


II 

5 


II 

5 


5 




Kansas 


••• 3 


. . 



Kentucky 10 

Louisiana 6 

Maine 5 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts ....11 

Michigan 9 

Minnesota 3 

Mississippi 6 



Missouri 



Nebraska I 

Nevada i 

New Hampshire. . 3 

New Jersey 7 

New York 33 

North Carolina. ... 8 

Ohio 20 

Oregon I 

Pennsylvania 27 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina. ... 5 

Tennessee 10 

Texas 6 

Vermont 3 

Virginia 9 

West Virginia .... 3 
Wisconsin 8 



15 

3 
3 

5 

9 

35 

10 

22 

3 
29 

4 

7 

12 

8 

5 
II 

5 
10 



3 
3 

5 

9 

35 

10 

22 

3 

29 

4 
7 



Total 



292 



366 



286 



3 

3 

5 

9 

35 

10 

22 

3 
29 

4 
7 



5 
II 

5 
10 

286 



8 for Hendricks., D., Ind. 
4 for Brown, Mo. 

Not counted. 



for Hendricks. 



8 for Brown. 
6 for Hendricks. 
I for Davis. 



12 for Hendricks. 
8 for Hendricks. 



■^ The death of Mr. Greeley before the Electoral count caused the casting of his 66 
votes as scattering. The above table indicates the way they went for President. 
For Vice-President the vote was still more scattered. Brown, Liberal Republican, 
Mo., received 47 ; Julian, Democrat, Ind., 5 ; Colquitt, Democrat, Ga., 5 ; Palmer, 
Democrat, 111., 3; Bramlette, Democrat, Ky., 3; Groesbeck, Democrat, O., l; 
Macken, Democrat, Ky., i; Banks, Liberal Republican, Mass., i. The 14 votes 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. gQ3 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, N. Y Continued. 

Secietary of Treasury William A. Richardson, Mass. 

Secretary of War William W. Belknap, Iowa. . .Continued. 

Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, N. J " 

Secretary of Interior Columbus Delano, Ohio " 

Attorney-General Geo. H. Williams, Oregon. ... " 

Postmaster-General J. A, J. Creswell, Md " 

FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS— Y\x->X. Session.— Met Dec. i, 
1873. The Republican majority was still large. Senate: 50 Re- 
publicans, 19 Democrats, 5 Liberal Republicans. House: 198 Re- 
publicans and 91 Democrats, with a sprinkling of Liberal Repub- 
licans. House organized by re-electing James G. Blaine Speaker. 
The business depression which culminated in the panic of 1873 
made cautious financial legislation necessary. An act increas- 
ing the national currency to ;^400,000,000 was vetoed as tend- 
ing to inflation at a time when the tendency should be toward 
resumption of specie payments. The bill could not be passed 
over the veto for want of the necessary two-thirds, though a 
strong minority in both parties thought inflation the proper 
remedy. This idea became the basis of the Greenback party, 
which began to figure about this time. 

Lengthy debates which took a party turn were indulged over 
a Republican measure to regulate inter-State commerce. So 
with Sumner's Civil Rights bill, which was designed to secure 
to the colored citizens the rights comprehended in the Four- 
teenth Amendment. It passed the House, but got no further. 

An act was passed Sept. 14, 1872, which referred all matters 
in dispute between this country and England to what became 
known as the Geneva Commission. This Commission now re- 
ported that the sum of ;^ 15,500,000 was due the United States 
for damages occasioned to American commerce by privateers 
fitted out under British auspices, bearing the British flag, or 
permitted to sail frorn British ports. At this session a Commis- 
sion was raised to distribute this award (June 23, 1874). 

of Arkansas and Louisiana were not counted on account of frauds in the elections 
and duplicate counts by two opposing Returning Boards. The popular vote was : 
Grant, 3,597,070 — 31 States ; Greeley, 2,834,079 — 6 States; O' Conor, 29,408; Black, 
5,608. 



^04 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

What was known as the Poland Utah Bill became a law. It 
created a District Court for the Territory, and excluded polyga- 
mous persons from the jury-box when bigamy cases were being 
tried. 

The Tariff Act of June 22, 1874, was passed. It was an effort 
to correct the tendency of the act of 1872 toward low rates of 
duty. The act of 1872, as well as the preceding one, had been in 
the line of reduction. The panic of 1873 had taught the folly of 
too rapid a reduction of rates, or too wide a departure from the 
protective idea. The act of 1874 stiffened rates on dutiable 
articles, clung to the protective idea, and at the same time allowed 
a liberal free list, mostly of raw or unmanufactured articles. 

Congress adjourned, June 23, 1874. 

FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
7, 1874. The Administration was pinched in its Southern policy. 
In Louisiana, for instance, two hostile State governments were 
in existence, the one favorable to the rights of all citizens, the 
other working under the auspices of the White League. They 
had gotten to blows. Blood had run in the streets of New Or- 
leans. The riots there, not to dignify them as war, threatened 
to culminate in a war of races. The President had been appealed 
to. The time had passed for that active interference which the 
early period of reconstruction might have warranted. Yet he 
could do no less than make some kind of effort for peace, and 
naturally in behalf of the government which recognized the 
largest liberty and secured the amplest rights to all citizens. 
Such interference was turned greatly to his hurt by politicians. 
It was somewhat of an unfortunate juncture, for the President's 
Private Secretary, O. E. Babcock, came to trial for complicity 
with the " Whisky Ring," but was acquitted and resigned. 
Then came the impeachment of Belknap, Secretary of War 
(July 26, 1876), on the charge of selling an Indian trading es- 
tablishment. He, too, was acquitted. But by this conspiracy 
of circumstances the Administration suffered, and perhaps un- 
justly, for though the efforts of its enemies were desperate to 
bring some of the alleged irregularities home to the White 
House, they in no case succeeded. All these things, however. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 605 

had their effect on public sentiment and contributed to bring 
about that pohtical whirl which made the Forty-fourth Congress 
Democratic. 

This session was marked by the passage of the Civil Rights 
bill, by a strict party vote. It secured the approval of the Pres- 
ident, March i, 1875. It is the bill which the Supreme Court 
decided to be unconstitutional (October, 1883), on the ground 
that the authority conferred on Congress by the Fourteenth 
Amendment to give such amendment effect by appropriate legis- 
lation, was not an authority which took away from States the 
power to do the same thing, or interfered with their right to 
do it. 

On Feb. 24, 1875, House bill to permit Colorado to form a 
State government was passed by a strict party vote, and so, or 
nearly so, of the Resumption Act of Jan. 14, 1875. In this in- 
stance, the Republicans strove to crown their financial career by 
looking to a period when the National promises to pay should 
reach par in gold and silver. They were antagonized by the 
Democrats, who, for the time being, seemingly forgot their hard 
money notions of the Jackson era. 

The Tariff Act of Feb. 8, 1875, stiffened the rates on silks, 
wines, tin-plates, and some other articles. 

Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1875. 

FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS— Y'lxst Session.— Met Dec. 
6, 1875. The House was Democratic and the Senate Repub- 
lican. The former organized by electing Michael C. Kerr, Ind., 
Speaker. This lengthy session was barren of far reaching polit- 
ical results, owing to the attitude of the two Houses. The Demo- 
crats in the House cultivated their majority situation, so as to 
stand well before the country during the next presidential cam- 
paign, by advocating a reduction of appropriations, taxation, etc. 
In most of their efforts they were met half way by the Repub- 
licans. Congress adjourned, August 15, 1876. 

ELECTION OF 1876.— The year 1875 had been one of 
political turmoil, especially in the Southern States. It had been 
a year of political reverses for the Republicans in all sections — 
a " tidal wave " year, to use a popular expression. It was evident 



606 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

that a close election was impending. By the extermination of 
what were called the '* carpet bag " governments in the South, 
the Republicans lost much ground there, and could not hope to 
control more than two or three of the States. Owing to side 
parties, the reverses of the previous year, the general feeling of 
weariness over Southern agitation, and especially the hard ac- 
countability to which a dominant party is naturally held during 
financial crisis, many Northern States hitherto strongly Repub- 
lican had become debatable. 

The new party calling itself '* The Greenback Party," or rather 
"The Independent Party," met in National Convention, at Indi- 
anapolis, May 17, 1876. This was an attempt to give coherency 
to a movement which had for its object relief of the financial 
stringency and business depression which prevailed. It would 
reach its end by using the credit of the government in the shape 
of Greenbacks, and insisting on a sufficient issue of them to re- 
lieve all stringency and depression. The thought naturally dated 
from 1873, the beginning of the financial crisis. It received en- 
couragement from the fact that the greenback was popular, and 
would ere long be redeemable in gold. But it may be said to 
have received its greatest impetus from the date of the Resump- 
tion Act of 1875. The Democratic party, contrary to its tradi- 
tions, arrayed itself squarely against that measure. It was there- 
fore in a position to ally itself with the Greenbackers. These 
alliances were made in several States, and in some the coalitions 
were successful. Standing alone, the Greenback party obtained 
a hold only in industrial districts, and there more on account- of 
the pleasing delusion of unlimited money than of any deeply 
imbedded principle. It nominated for President, Peter Cooper^ 
N. Y., and for Vice-President, Samuel F. Carey, Ohio. 

The platform (i) arraigned both the Republican and Demo- 
cratic parties for refusing to foster " financial reform and indus- 
trial emancipation." (2) Demanded the repeal of the Specie 
Resumption Act of Jan. 14, 1875. (3) The United States note 
as a circulating medium, and a legal tender, and insistence on 
Jefferson's theory that " bank paper must be suppressed and the 
circulation restored to the nation to whom it belongs." (4) The 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. QQ'J 

government to legislate for the full development of all legitimate 
business. (5) No further issue of gold bonds. (6) No further 
sale of bonds with which to purchase silver as a substitute for 
fractional currency. 

The American National Party met as early as June 9, 1875, 
in mass meeting, at Pittsburg, and nominated for President, 
James B. Walker, 111. ; for Vice-President, Donald Kirkpatrick, 
N. Y. Its platform favored a Sabbath ; prohibition ; opposed 
secret societies ; favored the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 
amendments ; arbitration as a means of averting war ; the Bible 
in schools ; return to specie payments ; a sound Indian policy ; 
a direct vote of the people for President. 

The Prohibition Party met in National Convention at Cleve- 
land, May 17, 1876, and nominated for President, Green C. Smith, 
Ky. ; for Vice-President, G. T. Stewart, Ohio. The platform in- 
vited (i) prohibition in all places under control of the govern- 
ment, and opposed all traffic in alcoholic drinks. (2) Equal 
suffrage and eligibility to office. (3) Lands to actual settlers ; 
reduction of postage, and land and water transportation. (4) No 
lotteries nor stock gambling. (5) Abolition of polygamy ; Na- 
tional observance of Sabbath ; Free public schools ; Free use of 
Bible ; Separation of sect from government and schools ; Arbi- 
tration ; direct vote of people for President ; redemption of paper 
money in gold ; economy. 

The Republican party met in National Convention at Cincin- 
nati, June 14, 1876. A significant feature of the Convention 
was the controversy over the method of casting the voice of the 
States. Hitherto the State delegations had voted as a unit, the 
sentiment of a majority of the delegates being the sentiment of 
the State. This rule was now broken and the delegates voted their 
choice directly. Rutherford B. Hayes, Ohio, was nominated for 
President, and William A. Wheeler, N. Y., for Vice-President. 
The platform declared (i) the United States is a nation, not a 
league ; (2) Republican work is not finished until the principles 
of the Declaration are acknowledged in every State; (3) protec- 
tion of all citizens; rigorous use of all constitutional powers to 
that end; (4) redemption of U. S. notes in coin; (5) improved 



608 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

civil service ; (6) rigid responsibility in office ; (7) no sectarian 
control of schools ; sufficient revenue with protection ; no more 
land grants to corporations ; protection to emigrants ; enlarged 
rights for women ; extirpation of polygamy ; honor to soldiers ; 
deprecation of sectional lines ; arraignment of Democrats for 
preferring Confederate to Union soldiers in public places; 
approval of the Administration. 

The Democratic party met in National Convention at St. 
Louis, June 28, 1876, and nominated for President, Samuel J. 
Tilden, N. Y.; for Vice-President, Thomas A. Hendricks, Ind. 
The platform (i) affirmed a need of reform and pledged the 
party to the Union and to acceptance of the amendments as a final 
settlement of the controversies of civil war ; (2) denounced the 
reconstruction policy of Congress ; the failure to make good the 
legal tender notes ; the high taxes and extravagance ; the finan- 
cial imbecility which had made no advance toward resumption ; 
the Resumption Act of 1875 as hindering resumption ; demanded 
its repeal; (3) demanded a "judicious system of economics;" 
reform in taxation ; (4) the existing tariff denounced as a 
" master-piece of injustice, inequality and false pretence ; " (5) 
Reform in public land system ; reform in treaties with China ; 
reform in civil service ; in higher grades of service ; in abuses 
of Republican party. 

DISPUTED RESULT.— ThQ result of the election, Nov. 7, 
1876, gave rise to a prolonged dispute which involved many 
grave questions of law, and necessitated the raising of a special 
tribunal for its final determination. Up to the meeting of Con- 
gress the condition of affairs was thus : The election returns 
showed that the Republicans carried all the Northern States 
except New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Indiana, and 
that the Democrats had carried all the Southern States except 
Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina. Owing to lack of faith 
in the Returning Boards of these three States, the result was 
disputed by the Democrats. Owing to a similar lack of faith in 
the methods of the Democrats in th6se States, the Republicans 
were suspicious of their interference with the Returning Board 
counts and reports. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 609 

Committees of both parties visited the scenes of strife. 
Whether their presence and advice helped a just conclusion has 
never been definitely ascertained. But it did not take much in- 
vestigation to find that the vote of South Carolina was Republi- 
can, and this the Democratic members of the Congressional 
Investigating Committee conceded. This disposed of one of 
the doubtful States. 

The Returning Board of Florida gave 926 Republican major- 
ity for the Republican electors. It was cited before the Supreme 
Court of the State, and a recount was ordered. This gave 206 
Republican majority. But before this recount was finished the 
electors had met and cast their votes for the Republican nominees. 

The Returning Board of Louisiana, appointed by Gov. Pack- 
ard, made up from the confused returns at their command a 
Republican majority of 3,931. The Returning Board appointed 
by McEnery, who claimed to be Governor, made up from the 
same confused election returns a Democratic majority of 7,876. 

The trouble in Oregon was not one of popular majority, which 
was admittedly Republican, but was over the claim that one of 
the three electors was a Federal office-holder. The Democratic 
Governor of the State therefore certified to two Republican 
electors and one Democratic (Mr. Cronin). The Secretary of 
State certified to the three Republican electors, he being the 
legal canvassing officer. 

FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS— Second Session. — Met 
December 4, 1876. The Speaker, Mr. Kerr, having died, Sam- 
uel J. Randall, Pa., was elected to that position. The disputed. 
Electoral count occupied almost the entire time of the session. 
The inadequacy of all laws regulating the count was painfully 
manifest. Both parties were firm. The situation was such that 
a false step might have led to an outbreak. The Republicans 
claimed that the President of the Senate had, under the law, the 
sole authority to open and announce the returns in the presence 
of the two Houses. The Democrats claimed that the two 
Houses acting as a joint body could control the count under the 
law. Some Democrats went so far as to say that the House 
39 



610 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

alone could decide when an emergency had arrived in which it 
was to elect a President. 

Danger was av^oided by the patriotism of prominent members 
of Congress, of both parties, who after several conferences agreed 
to report the Electoral Commission Act. It passed, and was 
approved Jan. 29, 1877. The Senate vote for it was 47 to 17 
against. Of this 47, 21 were Republicans and 26 Demo- 
crats. Of this 17/16 were Republicans and I Democrat. It 
therefore had an almost unanimous Democratic support in the 
Senate. The House was Democratic. It passed there by a vote 
of 191 to S6. The act created an Electoral Commission, com- 
posed of five Representatives, five Senators, and five Judges of 
the Supreme Court, 15 in all. Each of these bodies was to select 
its representatives on the Commission. To this Commission 
were referred the disputed returns. Its decision was to be final 
unless overruled by both Houses. The decisions of the Com- 
mission on all the disputed returns were to the effect that the 
electoral vote as certified and sent to the Speaker of the Senate 
by the regularly constituted authorities in each State must be 
accepted as conclusive and beyond investigation or question by 
any authority outside of that State.* The final count as thus 
ascertained gave the Republican nominees 185 Electoral votes, 
and the Democratic 184. Congress adjourned sme die, March 3, 
1877. On March 4, Hayes and Wheeler were sworn into office. 

* A remarkable feature of this controversy was the fact that the Republicans 
were standing on old-time Democratic ground and relying on rigid Democratic 
doctrine. They were, for the time being, construing the Constitution strictly and 
insisting on the right of the State to ascertain its own vote and certify and forward 
it in its own way, all of which was to be conclusive on outside tribunals. The Dem- 
ocrats on the other hand combated their old rigid interpretation theories by urging 
that the Congress should reject the certificates from a State Returning Board. 
Happily the political complexion of the two Houses, one Democratic, the other 
Republican, prevented any successful appeal from the decisions of the Commission, 
If both Houses, under the terms of the act, could have agreed to upset any one ot 
the Commission's decisions, then riot, if not civil war, must have ensued. But the 
act was wisely framed with a view to the entire political situation. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



611 



XXIII. 



HAYES' ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1877 — March 3, 1881. 

Rutherford B. Hayes, Ohio, President. William A. 
Wheeler, N. Y., Vice-President. 



Congresses. 
Forty-fifth Congress. 

Forty-sixth Congress. 



Sessions. 
I, Octoberi5, 1877-December 3, 1877. Extra Session. 
December 3, 1877-June 20, 1878. 
December 2, 1878-March 3, 1879. 

March 18, 1879-July i, 1879. Extra Session. 
December i, 1879-June 16, 1880. 
December 6, 1880-March 3, 1881. 






ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 

States. 131,425. Vote. 

Alabama 8 10 

Arkansas 4 6 

California 4 6 

Colorado I 3 

Connecticut 4 6 

Delaware I , 3 

Florida 2 4 

Georgia 9 ii 

Illinois 19 21 

Indiana 13 15 

Iowa 9 II 

Kansas 3 5 

Kentucky lO 12 

Louisiana 6 8 

Maine 5 7 

Maryland 6 8 

Massachusetts 11 13 

Michigan 9 ii 

Minnesota 3 5 

Mississippi 6 8 

Missouri 13 15 

Nebraska I 3 

Nevada.,.^ I 3 

New Hampshire. ... .. 3 5 

New Jersey 7 9 

New York 33 35 

North Carolina 8 10 

Ohio 20 22 



Republican. 



Democratic. 



Ohio. 



R. B.Hayes, W.A.Wheel- 
er, N.Y. 

'6 
3 



II 

5 

*8 

7 

13 
II 

5 



22 



22 



S. J. Til- 
den, N.Y. 
10 



8 
15 



9 
35 
10 



T. A. Hen- 
dricks, Ind. 
lO 



* The popular vote was : Hayes, 4,033,950— 21 Stales; Tilden, 4,284,885— 17 
States; Greenback, Cooper, 81,740; Prohibition, Smith, 9,522; American, 539; 
scattering, 14,715. 



612 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Electoral Vote — Continued. 

Republican. Democratic. 



Basis of R. B. Hayes, W.A. Wheel- S. J. Til- T. A. Hen* 

States. 131,425- Vote. Ohio. er, N. Y. den,N.Y. dricks,Ind. 

Oregon i 3 3 3 •• 

Pennsylvania 27 29 29 29 

Rhode Island 2 4 4 4 

South Carolina 5 7 7 7 .... 

Tennessee lO 12 .. .. 12 12 

Texas 6 8 .. .. 8 8 

Vermont 3 5 5 5 

Virginia 9 ii .. .. u u 

West Virginia 3 5 .. .. 5 5 

Wisconsin 8 10 10 lo 

Totals 293 "369 ^ 185" T84 784 

THE CABINET. 

Secretary of State William M. Evarts, N. Y. 

Secretary of Treasury John Sherman, Ohio. 

Secretary of War Geo. W. McCrary, Iowa. 

Secretary of Navy Richard W. Thompson, Ind. 

Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz, Mo. 

Attorney-General Charles Devens, Mass. 

Postmaster-General David M. Key, Tenn. 

POLITICAL SITUATION.— ThQ President's inaugural was 
pacific. He visited the South, and the tone of his speeches there 
was very conciHatory. There was a general departure from Re- 
publican ideas respecting the questions which had disturbed the 
reconstructed States. They were given over to such rule as 
seemed inevitable for a long time, in case the Federal troops were 
withdrawn. While the President's conservatism gave rise to 
criticism among his party friends, very many thought it proper 
that he should pursue an intermediate political course in view 
of the circumstances surrounding his election and the seeming 
desire for a breathing spell after the excitement attending the 
electoral count. 

FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS— Extrsi Session.— Called Oct. 
15, 1877. This Congress, like the Forty -fourth, was Democratic 
in the House, and Republican in the Senate. The latter body 
stood 38 Republicans ; 37 Democrats ; i Independent. The 
House stood 156 Democrats, and 136 Republicans. The House 
organized by re-electing Samuel J. Randall, Pa., Speaker. Party 
lines were strictly drawn over a determined effort of the Demo- 
crats to repeal the Resumption Act. The platform of 1880 



J 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 613 

pledged the party to repeal. Their measure failed in the Senate. 
The same effort was made in the first regular session of this 
(Forty-fifth) Congress, with no better success. Congress ad- 
journed, Dec. 3, 1877. 

FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS— Y\xs\. Regular Session.— Met 
Dec. 3, 1877. From this time on financial legislation largely 
occupied the respective sessions. Government income was 
ample for every purpose. The national credit was high. Efforts 
to defeat resumption, fixed for 1879, ^^^^ made by the Demo- 
crats this session, but failed owing to the Republican majority 
in the Senate. The era of refunding was beginning, and was to 
be carried on till it became evident that the entire public debt 
could be turned into bonds bearing no more than three per cent, 
interest, if such an end should prove desirable. As a conse- 
quence bitter partyism was not indulged in as during slavery 
times and the period of reconstruction, though even these 
financial and business topics could not altogether escape modest 
party colorings when an advantage was likely to accrue. 

An act to remonetize silver and coin ;^2,ooo,ooo (Bland) a 
month was passed and received the President's veto, Feb. 28, 
1878. It was passed over the veto. This legislation was not 
of any party, but was thought to be in the interest of the Pacific 
or mining States. On May 28, 1878, the Bankrupt Act was so 
amended as to virtually work its repeal. The River and Har- 
bor Bill of this session (April 23, 1878) appropriated the large 
sum of ;^8,ooo,ooo for this class of coast and internal improve- 
ments. This was extraordinary, not only on account of the 
sum involved, but because it came from a Democratic House 
which had started on an economic career, and further because 
the old Democratic constitutional objections to appropriations 
of this kind were no longer heard. Both parties were now fully 
committed to appropriations of this character, and all for the 
worse unless a check be provided, which, as we shall see, soon 
came in the shape of executive veto. Congress adjourned, June 
20, 1878. 

FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS— Second Regular Session.— 
Met Dec. 2, 1878. The President's message referred with favor 



614 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

to the process of funding now rapidly and successfully going on, 
by which so many millions were being saved in annual interest. 
It was much firmer as to the Southern situation than his former 
message, and the party became assured of his fealty, began to 
harmonize in the several States and to recover from what, at one 
time, seemed to be permanent factional estrangement. 

An important, though not strictly party measure, was the'' 
Anti-Chinese bill, which was vetoed by the 'President as being 
against the Burlingame Treaty. It was passed over fhe veto, 
Feb. 22, 1879. ^^ prohibited the immigration of Chinese as 
laborers. 

The Republicans in the House made a determined effort to 
stop the coinage of Bland dollars. Their measure was defeated 
by an almost solid Democratic vote. 

The great bone of party contention was the old Republican 
measures which provided for keeping peace at the polls in the 
respective States during Congressional elections. These bills 
authorized the appointment of United States Marshals, and even 
the calling out of troops in case of danger. The Democrats 
used their power over the Appropriation bill of this session, to 
work their repeal, by withholding pay for Marshals and for the 
army, except on the condition that troops 'should never be used 
at elections. Two Army Appropriation bills were vetoed by the 
President on the ground that Congress could not deprive the 
Executive of the power to keep the peace, and that judicious use 
of troops was still necessary to suppress riotous demonstrations 
in certain sections. The end of the session came before an ap- 
propriation was made for the army. Congress adjourned sine 
die, March 3, 1879. 

FOR TY-SIXTH CONGRESS— Extra Session. — Called 
March 18, 1879, to pass the Army Appropriation bill which the 
Forty-fifth Congress failed to do. Now both Houses were 
Democratic. The Senate contained. Democrats, 42 ; Republi- 
cans, 33; Independent, i. The House, Democrats, 148; Re- 
publicans, 130; Greenbackers or Nationals, 15. 

This was a stormy session. The Democrats had their way in 
iboth Houses. They passed the Arnjy Appropriation bill, with 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. gl5 

the same " riders " as before, providing pay for the troops in 
case they were not used for preserving peace at the polls. The 
excitement had the effect of uniting the Republicans and stimu- 
lating the administration, who regarded the withholding of ap- 
propriations as an attempt to coerce the Executive branch by 
starving the government. The President vetoed the bill, and 
thus stated his position : " The army and navy are established 
by the Constitution. Their duty is clearly defined and their 
support provided for by law. The money required for this pur- 
pose is now in the Treasury. It was not the intention of the 
framers of the Constitution that any single branch of the gov- 
ernment should have the power to dictate conditions upon which 
this money should be applied to the purpose for which it was 
collected." The bill could not be passed over the veto. The 
offensive riders were therefore removed and the bill, as amended, 
passed. 

The Republicans made an ineffectual effort to pass a measure 
for insuring peace at Congressional elections by imposing a pen- 
alty on carrying fire-arms or concealed weapons. The Demo- 
crats in the House passed the Warner Silver bill providing for 
the unlimited coinage of silver dollars. The members of their 
party in the Senate, under the lead of Bayard, refused to recog- 
nize it. Congress adjourned, July i, 1879. 

FORTY-SIXTH CONGRESS— Y\x->X. Regular Session.^ 
Met Dec. i, 1879. The summer had witnessed an exodus of 
the colored population of the South, and a movement toward 
kinder localities. It gave rise to much discussion in the journals 
of all sections, and those of the South advised more liberal 
treatment of the blacks in matters of education, labor contracts, 
etc. The President's message was the firmest and ablest he had 
yet presented. It spoke of the success of resumption and the 
great saving thereby effected; took decided ground against fur- 
ther coinage of the Bland dollar; urged the necessity of organ- 
izing an effective Civil Service Reform Commission, and favored 
the retirement of the Legal Tender notes. 

The Democrats again brought up their measure to prevent the 
use of the army to keep the peace at the polls. After receiving 



616 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

what was known as the Garfield amendment to the effect that 
the " bill should not be construed so as to prevent the Constitu- 
tional use of the army to suppress domestic violence in a State," 
it was passed and approved. 

The same offensive " riders " were, however, attached to the 
Army Appropriation bill, which was again vetoed. Before the 
end of the session the Democrats modified their hostility to the 
Congressional Election Law, owing to a decision of the Supreme 
Court affirming its constitutionality. A long discussion was had 
on a bill to regulate the electoral count. A bill to this effect 
had been in many previous Congresses. Imperative as some 
such legislation seemed, nothing came of it. The River and 
Harbor bill of the session appropriated $9,CX)0,000. Congress 
adjourned, June i6, 1880. 

ELECTION OF i88a—The Republican National Conven- 
tion met at Chicago, June 5, 1880. There was much excitement 
in the party ranks over the candidacy of ex-President Grant, 
whose friends were urging him for a third, but not consecutive, 
term. After 36 ballots, James A. Garfield, Ohio, was nominated 
for President, and Chester A. Arthur, N. Y., for Vice-President. 
The platform recited, as Republican party history, the suppression 
of rebellion, reconstruction of the Union, manumission of 4,000,000 
slaves, raising of a paper currency from 38 per cent, to par, pay- 
ment in coin of all national obligations, raising of government 
credit from where 6 per cent, bonds sold at Z6 to where 4 per 
cent, bonds sold at par, increase of railways from 3 1,000 miles in 
i860 to 82,000 in 1879, increase of foreign trade from ^^700,000,- 
000 to ;^ 1, 1 5 0,000,000, and of exports from ;^20,ooo,ooo less than 
our imports in i860 to ;^264,ooo,ooo more than our imports in 
1880, revival of depressed industries. (2) Pledge of similar 
action for the future ; to pay soldiers' pensions ; to further re- 
duce the debt, to encourage commerce. (3) The Constitution 
the supreme law; boundary between reserved and delegated 
powers to be determined by the nation, not by the States. (4) 
Favored popular education ; no appropriation of school funds to 
sectarian uses. (5) Protective duties ; no land grants to corpora- 
tions ; extinction of polygamy ; internal improvement ; obliga- 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 617 

tion to soldiers and sailors. (6) Limitation of Chinese immigra- 
tion ; approval of Hayes' administration ; charges of corrupt 
practices and vicious principles on the Democratic party ; radical 
civil service reform. 

The National (Greenback) Convention met at Chicago June 
9, i88o, and nominated James B. Weaver, Iowa, for President, 
and E.* J. Chambers, Texas, for Vice-President. The platform 
adhered to the principle of a large legal tender currency ; opposi- 
tion to refunding of the debt ; abolition of national banks and 
their currency ; favored unlimited coinage of gold and silver ; 
enforcement of the eight hour law ; opposed the immigration of 
Chinese ; land grants to actual settlers only ; regulation of inter- 
State commerce by Congress ; a graduated income tax ; no re- 
striction on suffrage ; no bondholders' government ; no section- 
alism. 

The Prohibition Reform Party met in National Convention at 
Cleveland, June 17, 1880, and nominated for President Neal 
Dow, Me., and for Vice-President H. A. Thompson, Ohio. A 
very lengthy platform took the usual ground against traffic in 
intoxicants and arraigned both political parties for shirking the 
question. 

The Democratic Party met in National Convention at Cincin- 
nati, June 22, 1880, and nominated Winfield S. Hancock, N. Y., 
for President, and William H. English, Ind., for Vice-President. 
The platform (i) pledged the party to Democratic traditions and 
doctrines. (2) Opposed centralization and sumptuary laws ; 
favored separation of church and State ; fostered common schools. 
(3) Home rule; honest money; maintenance of public credit; 
" tariff for revenue only ; " subordination of military to civil 
authority ; reform of civil service. (4) A free ballot. (5) De- 
nunciation of Hayes' administration and Republican party. (6) 
Eulogy on Tilden. (7) Free ships ; no Chinese immigrants ; 
public land for actual settlers ; protection of laboring man 
against " cormorant and commune; " congratulations over work 
of the Democratic Congress. 

The campaign opened disastrously for the Republicans, Maine 



618 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

having gone Democratic, or Coalition, in September. The loss 
of Indiana to the Democrats in October threw the advantage to 
the Repubhcan side. The Democrats felt, as the canvas ad- 
vanced, the weight of their commitment to " a tariff for revenue 
only," a Protective Tariff being the issue directly pushed by the 
Republicans. ** The Morey letter," circulated for the purpose 
of injuring Garfield in the Pacific States, was a conspicuous cam- 
paign sensation. The impression that it was. a malicious invention 
served to deaden its effect, if not to turn it to the disadvantage 
of the Democrats. The result in November was favorable to the 
Republicans. The Congressional elections were also favorable 
to that party, reversing the Democratic majority. 

FORTY-SIXTH CONGRESS— Second Session.— Met Dec. 
6, 1880. The President's message was a strong paper. It took 
high ground in favor of the inviolability of the Constitutional 
amendments ; favored an appropriation to perfect a civil service 
code ; opposed political assessments ; asked that polygamy be 
punished by excluding those who practiced it from the jury box; 
and that a silver dollar be coined equal in value to the gold dol- 
lar. An effort was made to pass a law regulating the electoral 
count. It failed as usual. The count in February (9th) showed 
214 votes for Garfield and Arthur, and 155 for Hancock and 
English. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1 88 1. On 
March 4 Garfield and Arthur were sworn into office. 

XXIV. 

GARFIELD'S AND ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION. 

March 4, 1881— March 3, 1885. 

James A. Garfield, Ohio, President. Chester A. Arthur, 
N. Y., Vice-President. 



Congresses. Sessions. 

Forty-seventh Congress. / i' December 5, 1881-August 8, 1882. 
\ 2, December 4, 1882-March 3, 1883. 

Forty-eighth Congress. { '> I^^^^^ber 3, 1883- 




PRESIDENTS FROM 1869 TO 1884. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 



619 



ELECTORAL VOTE.'' 



Basis of 
States. 131,425- 

Alabama 8 

Arkansas 4 

California 4 

Colorado I 

Connecticut 4 

Delaware I 

Florida * 2 

Georgia 9 

Illinois 19 

Indiana 13 

Iowa 9 

Kansas 3 

Kentucky lo 

Louisiana. 6 

Maine 5 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts II 

Michigan 9 

Minnesota 3 

Mississippi 6 

Missouri. 13 

Nebraska I 

Nevada I 

New Hampshire 3 

New Jersey 7 

New York 33 

North Carolina 8 

Ohio 20 

Oregon I 

Pennsylvania 27 

Rhode Island 2 

South Carolina 5 

Tennessee 10 

Texas..... 6 

Vermont 3 

Virginia 9 

West Virginia 3 

Wisconsin 8 





Republican. 


Democrat, 




James A. 


Chester A. 


Winfield S. William H. 




Garfield, 


Arthur, 


Hancock, English, 


Vote. 


Ohio. 


N. Y. 


N. Y. Ind. 


10 






10 10 


6 


. , 


. . 


6 6 


6 


I 


I 


5 5 


3 


3 


3 




6 


6 


6 


. . 


3 






3 3 


4 






4 4 


II 






II II 


21 


21 


21 


• . • • 


15 


15 


15 


. . 


II 


II 


II 


. . 


5 


5 


5 


. . 


12 


, . 


. . 


12 12 


8 




. . 


8 8 


7 


7 


7 


. . 


8 






8 8 


13 


13 


13 


. . 


II 


II 


II 


. . 


S 


5 


5 


. . 


8 






8 8 


15 






15 15 


3 


3 


3 


.. 


3 






3 3 


5 


•5 


5 


. . 


9 






9 9 


35 


35 


35 


. . 


10 






10 10 


22 


22 


22 


. . 


3 


3 


3 


.. 


29 


29 


29 




4 


4 


4 


. . 


7 






7 7 


12 


, . 


, . 


12 12 


8 




. , 


8 8 


5 


^ 


5 


.. 


11 






II II 


5 






5 5 


10 


10 


10 


. . 


369 


214 


214 


155 155 



Totals 293 

THE CABINET 

Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Me. 

Secretary of Treasury William Windom, Minn. 

Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln, 111. 

Secretary of Navy W. H. Hunt, La. 

Secretary of Interior Samuel J, Kirkwood, Iowa. 

Attorney-General Wayne McVeagh, Pa. 

Postmaster-General .Thomas L. James, N. Y. 

'^The popular vote was, Garfield, 4,449,053 — 19 States; Democrat, Hancock, 
4,442,035 — 19 States; Greenback, Weaver, 308,578 ; Prohibition, 10,305 ; Ameri- 
can, 707 ; scattering, 989. 



620 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

POLITICAL 5/r£/^77(9iV:— The conservatism of the Hayes' 
administration, always manifested save on extraordinary occa- 
sions, had softened party asperities and allayed sectional feeling. 
It had given play to two currents within the Republican party, 
the one conservative, like the administration, the other radical. 
The new administration had the support of both during the cam- 
paign. It therefore opened auspiciously. The inaugural was 
an able, patriotic paper, in which the President took a high stand 
on the question of suffrage, education, morals, public faith and 
civil service reform. 

The Senate sitting in extra session confirmed the Cabinet 
officers, but the minor appointments, especially those for New 
York State, gave rise to much feeling, which ended in the resig- 
nation of the Senators from that State, May 17, 188 1. This 
was the date of a disastrous division in the Republican party 
which led to the " tidal waves " of opposition in 1882-83. The 
conservative sentiment of the party strove to purify and popular- 
ize the methods of party management. It took the shape of 
" Independent " revolt in many States. In others it administered 
quiet rebuke to those it was pleased to designate as " Bosses" 
by refraining from voting. 

THE ASSASSINATION.— ThQ President was shot at the 
Baltimore and Potomac depot, Washington, on July 2, 188 1, 
at 9.20 A, M., by Charles J. Guiteau, a persistent seeker of po- 
litical places far beyond his ability to fill, and a maliciously dis- 
posed, cowardly semi-idiot, in whom -disappointment had stirred 
natural diabolism to the point of assassination. The President 
rallied from the effects of the shot, lingered hopefully for a long 
time, but finally died at Elberon, N. J., at 10.35 p. m., Sept. 19, 
1 88 1, amid the tears of a nation and the sympathies of a world. 

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION— The Cabinet at once 
telegraphed Vice-President Arthur of the death of President 
Garfield and suggested that he take the oath of office. He did 
so at 2.15 A. M., Sept. 20, 1 88 1, at New York city, before Judge 
Brady; and again at Washington, Sept. 22, at 12 M., before the 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 621 

THE CABINET.— \i^ did not reorganize his Cabinet at once, 
but when the changes were complete it stood as follows : 

Secretary of State Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, N. J. 

Secretary ot Treasury Charles J. Folger, N. Y. 

Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln, 111., continued. 

Secretary of Navy William E. Chandler, N. H. 

Secretary of Interior. .*. ...Henry M. Teller, Col. 

Attorney-General Benjamin Harris Brewster, Pa. 

Postmaster-General Timothy O. Howe, Wis. 

FORTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS— First Session.— Met De- 
cember 5, 1 88 1. The Republican party had control of the House, 
there being Republicans, 150; Democrats, 131 ; Nationals, 10; Re- 
adjusters, 2. The Senate stood Republicans, 37 ; Democrats, 
37; Independent, i ; Readjuster, I.* The House organized by- 
electing Warren B. Keifer, Ohio, Speaker. A conspicuous 
measure of this session was the Edmunds Polygamy bill, which 
was not a party measure, but singularly enough met with only 
Democratic opposition. It became final March 23, 1882. Its 
gist was the disfranchisement of those practising polygamy. 
On May 15, 1882, the bill to create a Tariff Commission was 
signed. This Commission sat at various places during the 
summer and fall. The Tariff act of the next session was based 
on their report. An amended anti-Chinese bill was passed, pro- 
hibiting their immigration for a period of twenty years. Ques- 
tions of banking and refunding took up a great part of the ses- 
sion. It was now an easy matter to place government bonds 
bearing interest as low as 3 per cent. An immense appropriation 
was made for River and Harbor purposes. It was vetoed by the 
President, but was passed over the veto by a vote of 41 to 16 in 
the Senate, and 122 to 59 in the House, showing that both par- 
ties were of the same spirit respecting this question of Internal 
Improvement. The veto took the ground that this species of 
legislation, as exemplified by this particular bill, had passed 
beyond the only warrant to be found for it, viz. : the authority 
'* to provide for the common defence and general welfare," and 

* This was Senator Mahone, Va., who stood at the head of a State party called 
«* Readjusters " of the State debt. 



622 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

had become the means by which money was taken for small 
streams and purely local improvements, with which the people 
at large had no concern and through which they could receive 
no benefit.* Feb. 25, 1882, an apportionment bill passed. It 
fixed the number of Representatives, under the census of 1870, 
at 325. Congress adjourned, Aug. 8,* 1882. 

FORTY-SEVENTH CONG RES S—Second Session.— Met 
December 4, 1882. This Congress seemed to be a point at 
which an immense amount of previously prepared and debated 
work culminated. It was prolific of important and far-reaching 
measures, many of them political but most of them of general 
moment. The Tariff Commission had made its report and both 
Houses had it under discussion. The outcrop was the Tariff 
Act of March 3, 1883, which lowered duties on most of the lead- 
ing imports, but whose main feature was to equalize rates and 
abolish the incongruities of existing Tariff laws. It cannot be 
said that the act was a success in this respect. Interests to be 
consulted were so conflicting that it was impossible to avoid 
crudities and hardships. Demand for lighter duties on raw ma- 
terials made by manufacturing sections worked to the injury of 
producing sections, and vice versa. The act was in the nature 
of a compromise. It served to show, however, that the entire 
country had come to regard this class of legislation as vital. The 
act went into operation as to sugar and molasses on the ist 
of June, 1883; as to its other provisions on the 1st of July, 
1883. 

The Civil Service Reform Bill passed at this session. It was 
introduced in the Senate by Geo. H. Pendleton, Democrat, of 
Ohio, and authorized a commission to devise a plan of civil ser- 
vice and put it in operation. Though this bill was introduced 
by a Democrat and ably sustained by him, the Democrats were 
its active opponents. Its final passage in both Houses was by 

* The rapid growth of this class of appropriations after they began to receive the 
favor of both parties appears thus: 1870, ^3,975,900; 1875, ;g6,648,5i7; 1880, 
^8,976,500; 1881, ^11,451,000; 1882, ^18,743,875, the amount in vetoed bill. 
Since the beginning of the government there has been expended in the respective 
States for river and harbor improvements the total sum of ;^lo8,796,40i. 



RULING THROUGH PARTIES. 623 

an almost solid Republican vote against an almost solid Demo- 
cratic opposition.* 

An -act of March 3, 1883, reduced letter postage to two cents 
for each half ounce and authorized a Postal note whose value 
should not exceed five dollars. Large reductions were made in 
Internal taxes. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1883. 

FORTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS— Yirst Session.— Met De- 
cember 3, 1883. The political "tidal wave" of 1882, partially 
repeated in 1883, had been very disastrous to the Republican 
party. They lost governors and legislators in many of their 
strongest States, and the National House of Representatives was 
Democratic. The Senate stood, Republicans, 40, to Democrats, 
36. The House was composed of Democrats, 195 ; Republicans, 
126; Independent, i; vacancies, 3. Much interest was felt in 
the election of a Speaker. The Democrats, as a party, seemed 
to be composed of two wings, one in favor of quiet respecting 
existing Tariff legislation, the other in favor of reduced duties. 
Mr. Carlisle, Ky., exponent of the latter idea, became Speaker. 

The President's message recommended closer commercial and 
political relations with Mexico ; an extension of our trade 
interests to South America and to the new Congo country; 
called attention to the national surplus of ^132,874,444.21, and 
recommended reduced tariff and internal taxation, with a partial 
appropriation of the surplus to the building of a navy; advised 
the redemption and recoinage of the trade dollars ; a settlement 
of the Mormon question by repeal of the Territorial act and es- 
tablishment of a government through a Commission ; reduction 
of postal rates in cities to one cent for every half ounce ; pro- 
visions for Inter-State traffic or commerce; new legislation re-, 
specting civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The 
country regarded the paper as plain, practical, business-like 
and assuring. 

•* Politicians attribute the defeat ot' Senator Pendleton for re-election to the Sen- 
ate by the Democratic Legislature of Ohio, in Januaiy, 1884, to his advocacy of 
this bill. 



PART III. 

LIVING QUESTIONS. 




CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

TS NATURE. — The Civil' Service properly embraces all 
officials, outside of the army and navy, engaged in ad- 
ministering a government, National or State. 

In our government a part of these officials are elected 
by the people, as the President and members of Con- 
gress. Senators are elective, but by Legislatures. So in the 
States, Governors and various State officers are elective. What- 
ever their importance, their number is smaller than the appointive 
officials. Whether elective or appointive, all these officials go 
to make up the civil service ; that is, they carry on the civil 
administration. 

But elective officials are responsible directly to the people. 
They do not constitute a part of the civil service in its narrower 
sense. In this narrower sense the civil service embraces only 
the appointive officials. But before we reach that part of the 
civil service which is now the object of reform, we must still 
further narrow it to those officials who are appointive and whose 
duties are subordinate to the heads of the various departments 
in which they serve. The heads of all important departments, 
and especially those ranking as Cabinet officers, are so closely 
identified with the elective officials, and their funqtion has still 
so much of a political caste that they are not yet regarded as 
within the scope of statutory civil service reform, though they 
may be if the reform is ever carried to completion. 
(624) 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. (525 

The theory of civil administration which prevailed in all the 
feudal countries of Europe was that office, from king to lowest 
retainer, was a right and a property. It was, therefore, used in 
a selfish, arbitrary way, not to advance the welfare of the State 
or citizen, but in the interest of the official and his party. All 
office became a source of corruption, tyranny and positive dan- 
ger. This, more than anything else, was what broke the back 
of feudalism. The battle carried on for centuries between the 
people and titled officials was really a battle for reform in the 
administration of civil affairs. The death of feudalism meant 
the substitution of a new for the old doctrine respecting office 
and officials. Office was no longer a right nor its possessor a 
•despotic owner. It was a trust, and its possessor a trustee for 
the people. The change was not immediate, but civil adminis- 
tration came to mean something vastly different from before. It 
was no longer a system for the perpetuation of party or men in 
power, nor for the subjugation of sentiment to their uses. The 
civil service was not a machine organized for personal and ambi- 
tious ends, but an agency for conducting the business of the 
State or people on honest and economic principles. All this in 
theory at least. 

Ever regarding the problem of civil administration with 
anxiety, and ever wishing to profit by the wisest experience and 
"best examples of the old world, our early statesmen held with 
the utmost tenacity to the doctrine that office was a trust, sacred 
in proportion to its dignity and responsibility, whose administra- 
tion in order to be effective must be wholly in the interest of the 
entire people, and into which there should creep as little of the 
selfishness and personalism of the holder or the ambitions of his 
party as possible. This doctrine characterized, if it did not 
dominate, all civil administration prior to the formation of the 
Constitution. After that it was conspicuous in every national 
administration up to that of President Jackson. Without much 
drift toward the opposite, with, as it were, a skip and a bound 
over all precedent, there was then a sudden return to the ex- 
ploded doctrine of feudal times. With a simple wave of his 
presidential wand Jackson called up out of the recesses of a 
40 



62(j BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

hoary past what became, in its newly vitaHzed form, the dogma 
that '* to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." It was as 
if civic administration had been thrown back four hundred years 
by some giant of retrogression. It was the incorporation of a 
principle into modern civil procedure, which crowned king and 
titled retainer had used for a thousand years to perpetuate war- 
like power at the expense of the people's manhood and ability, 
of all political progress, and even of liberty itself It was strange 
that such a thing could happen at a time so remote from the 
feudal ages, and amid institutions which had grown out of oppo-v 
sition to feudal practices. It was stranger still that it should 
find ready acceptance by politicians and all political classes, and 
become so popular as to require years of organized reform to 
check and banish it* 

The practical application of the Jacksonian doctrine resulted 
in the removal of all civil service officials and the substitution of 
those who professed a politics in accord with the Administration. 
He justified his action by the charge that he found himself 
surrounded by political enemies, and by the claim that he had a 
right to be surrounded only by political friends if a perfect 
administration of civic affairs were expected. What po- 
litical opinion had to do with mere clerical or administrative 
ability ; why he chose to regard personal or party allegiance as 
preferable to supreme allegiance to the government ; whether 
subserviency of mind or conviction was a guarantee of business 
qualification and pure civil methods ; these were questions he did 
not ask, or if so, did not answer. 

Administration has followed administration in recognizing the 
right to make a clean sweep of civil service officials. Every 
head of a department feels that it is incumbent on him to cast 
his eye along the civil service lines and spy out hostile heads for 

* " From that hour (Jackson's administration) this miaXim has remained an invio- 
lable principle of American politicians, and it is owing only to the astonishing 
vitality of the people of the United States and to the altogether unsurpassed and 
unsurpassable favor of their natural conditions that the State has not succumbed 
under the onerous burdens of the curse." — Van Holsfs Constitutional History of the 
United States. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. g27 

the political guillotine. A change is expected with every 
administration, and failure to make it is not only a disappoint- 
ment but a source of unpopularity. If such change were made 
in order to secure greater official merit, it would be desirable at 
all times. But there is no such plea, nor any test to insure it. 
On the contrary, the popular plea is now justification by prece- 
dent and reliance on the feudal dogma, ** to the victor belong 
the spoils." And as to test, it is, what has he done ? what can 
he do, for the party or the patron ? The entire civil service is a 
farming ground for pohtical leaders and their lieutenants. 
Promises of place are the incentives for prior political exertion ; 
places themselves the rewards of such exertion, if success 
ensue. Thus there is always an army of aspirants for civil 
places who have no merit except ability to manipulate a ward 
or district in the interest of a prospective patron. They be- 
come henchmen rather than competent, trustworthy officials, and 
rely for their places more on allegiance to men than on the honesty 
and capacity which alone could sustain them in business circles. 
The effect of a system like this— called by some the " system 
of rotation," by others the ** spoils system "' — cannot but be 
dangerous in the end to all purity, economy and efficiency in 
civil administration. It finds no countenance in any business, 
nor in any place outside of the civil service of the country. It 
tends directly to the destruction of confidence in the method of 
popular government through and by means of parties, whose 
real will it as often thwarts as carries out. It gives rise to 
closely corporate and mercenary political classes, to cliques and 
juntas of stipendiaries ; to despotic machines which runaway 
with higher party instincts and pervert the sober judgments of 
the people. Popular election fails to be a faithful registry of 
studied sentiment and abiding conviction, but is a record simply 
of the desires of a scheming and ambitious few, at odds, as like 
as not, with every interest except their own. And these demor- 
alizing effects are not limited to civic administration of National 
affairs. They are felt in all the States, in all the larger cities, in 
fact, wherever civic officials are sufficiently numerous, and civic 
affairs sufficiently intricate, to pass beyond the direct scrutiny 
and knowledge of the individual voter. 



628 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It is the province of Civil Service Reform to overcome these 
dangerous tendencies and break up this demoralizing system by- 
substituting the principles of civic administration which prevailed 
in the early days of the Republic, and so embalming them in the 
forms of law and practice as to make it impossible for President, 
Governor or any elective official to set them aside at his 
pleasure. Since the subject of this reform has been broached, it 
has grown in proportion to its importance, and has already 
taken the substantial form of experimental law in the National 
and some of the State governments, upon which law has been 
based an intelligent civil service procedure, destined to secure 
appointive civic officials without regard to their political opinions, 
but with regard solely to their merits, and to give them a tenure 
and term of office based on manhood and administrative excel- 
lence. 

HISTORY ABROAD.— A fuller understanding of the sub- 
ject of Civil Service Reform may be had by brief reference to its 
history, especially in Great Britain, whose civil service is the 
largest in the world, has engaged most profoundly the attention 
of her statesmen, and has taken the most perfect reformatory 
shapes. During the feudal periods in England and every other 
European country, power over the civil service, which was 
equivalent to the King's service, was arbitrary. Neither char- 
acter, capacity, economy, justice, duty, nor responsibility of any 
kind was recognized by the ruler, if demanded by the subject, in 
connection with civil appointments and removals. King and 
chieftain held universal, unchallenged, despotic control over all 
subordinates, and regarded them and their places as appendages 
and perquisites of their own paramount authority. 

Against this came early revolt. Magna Charta, to which we 
trace many of the principles of our Constitution, contained the 
first civil service rule in English history. King John was made 
to promise that he " would not make any justices, constables, 
sheriffs, or bailiffs, but of such as know the law of the realm and 
mean to truly observe it." Not a State in our Union insists on 
a similar qualification for its magistrates. As soon as the rebel- 
lion which forced Magna Charta from John died away, this high 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 629 

qualification for .then important offices was neglected and scorned, 
and the old abuses were renewed. Office again became a per- 
quisite and justice a farce. What the King and the favored 
officials chose to barter became authority, whose merchandise 
vitiated and benumbed the moral sense of the nation till reform 
was ten times harder than before. Not only in matters of State 
were offices dealt out to servile holders, but church offices were 
sold to the highest bidder, or disposed of so as best to secure 
favorites or placate enemies. This venality, running along for 
centuries, and over times when the moral sense was not active, 
begat a public opinion which looked upon it as inevitable. It 
was so in France, in Germany, and wherever feudalism had left 
its impressions. Besides, those who sanctioned this corruption 
were the ruling caste, the high-born, the titled, the educated, 
Kings, nobles, priests, lawyers. If ever reform was to come it 
must be looked for from sources far below these. The people 
themselves must move. It must be a battle of the masses 
against the privileged few, and the cause one of equal rights and 
personal merit against the arrogant and narrowing assumptions 
of political officials. 

This spoils system, nurtured in despotism, injustice, and even 
violence, gave rise to a second rebellion in 1377. It was the 
Wat Tyler rebellion. A third followed in the fifteenth century, 
known as the Jack Cade rebellion. Both were protests against offi- 
cial and partisan tyranny ; both attempts to secure civil service 
reform. They did but scatter a little wider the seeds of whole- 
some public sentiment. In all else they were failures. Planta- 
genet and Tudor adhered to their arbitrary disposition of offices, 
though in the face of a people whose fears of feudal practices 
were gradually growing less. Yet power felt the weakness of 
its position, for amid the religious furore from Henry VIII. to 
James II., it bolstered itself with the dogma of the '* divine right 
of kings," and James I. announced, '*As it is atheism and blas- 
phemy in a creature to dispute what the Deity may do, so it is 
presumption and sedition in a subject to dispute what a king 
may do in the height of his power." During his reign official 
corruption became more shameless than ever before. 



G30 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Popular intelligence was growing apace. Pym, Elliot, Hamp- 
den and Puritanism were possible. So was Cromwell, the latter 
not a mere administrative reformer, but an impersonation of a 
new spirit in both religion and politics. He stood for the peo- 
ple, as against rank, privilege and the entire spoils system. He 
disrupted, overthrew, abolished, purified, in the name of economy, 
merit and reform. It was a magnificent outburst of the people's 
power, and a mighty lesson in political history. Cromwell did 
not fail in the means to precipitate revolution, but when it 
came to perpetuating it, not unmixed with his own personalism, 
he resorted to the ofificial tests against which his whole move- 
ment was a protest. His death was the rapid decline of the 
revolution. He reformed a wicked and daring system only 
in part. But he left an army of bold thinkers on political 
questions, and the system he struck at was never to regain its 
old prestige. 

The Bill of Rights which settled William Prince of Orange 
on the throne (1688) was very nearly a set of Civil Service 
Rules. It saved the judiciary, even down to the magistrates, 
from all political interference, and greatly modified patronage in 
every department of civic administration. A few of the higher 
officials whose intimacy with the king was unquestioned and 
whose advice and confidence he ought to have, were still to be 
his own appointees. These became his especial ministers, and 
the body together his Cabinet. Thus the old Privy Council 
was superseded, and the new body became that upon which our 
own Cabinet is modelled. Henceforth in England the per- 
sonalism of power was lost, and the politics of the realm was 
vested in parties of the people. Would they prove any purer 
and better than kings, nobles, and the central juntas? Not a 
whit. Parties in Parliament resorted to the same old means of 
securing and retaining power. Partisan appointments to office, 
illegal use of patronage, the raising up of an army of political 
adherents by distribution of spoils, these were to be sources of 
corruption and disgrace for a hundred and fifty years more. 
The only difference was they were more visible, and parties 
could be more readily rebuked. The people had, or could 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. g31 

have, temporary redress. Parliament and parties could not 
be so effectively tyrannical and dangerous, such complete rob- 
bers of rights, as kings and privileged classes had been. 

The old reform battles between the people and the privileged 
classes were therefore to be renewed between the people and the 
Parliaments. Manfully was the struggle carried on. The fall 
of Lord North and the Independence of America mark its cul- 
minating point. After that, from 1800 to 1853, the monopoly 
of patronage in the Parliament witnessed a decline. Reform 
statutes began to crowd the books. Notions of civil adminis- 
tration on a .business basis took deep hold. The people held 
mass meetings and demanded economic service and their right 
to recognition on the ground of merit. Public opinion in favor 
of mental and moral tests of fitness for civil places grew rapidly, 
and the political leaders were forced to bow to it. The English 
civil service was then the largest in the world, the East Indian 
branch alone requiring an army of officials. In 1853 the efforts 
of reform were crowned with success by the opening of the civil 
service to free competition, and the acceptance of all minor offi- 
cials on the basis of merit established by actual examination. 
A permanent Civil Service Commission was established, whose 
business was to complete the reform. The work has gone on 
from reform to reform, ever since. Official monopoly of nomi- 
nation has been broken up. Report after report has been made 
by the commission in proof of the signal superiority of the new 
over the old service. The political atmosphere is purer every- 
where. The young of all classes are stimulated to qualify for 
examination. Certainty of civil position, without a barter of 
manhood, sale of principle, or promise of subserviency, renders 
place desirable and honorable. Then after the holder is worn 
out with labor, or bowed with years, he is taken care of by the 
government he has faithfully served. There is no leading Eng- 
lish statesman to-day who does not testify to the value of this 
great reform. It is permanently incorporated on the civic ad- 
ministration and for its great purity and elevation. Says Sir 
Charles Trevelyan, " You cannot lay too much stress on the 
fact that the making of public appointments by open competi- 



632 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tion has been accepted by all our political parties, and there is 
no sign of any movement against it from any quarter." 

HISTORY AT HOME.— The first Congress had under con- 
sideration the subject of civil service. It refused to limit the 
term of civic offices, for the reason that the power of executive 
removal rendered such a limitation unnecessary. This was 
clearly in accord with the constitutional intention, for that in- 
strument when it fixes a term and tenure for non-elective offi- 
cials — judges for instance — extends it over a period of efficiency 
and good behavior. Judgment as to a like period for subordi- 
nate civic officials was left with the President. They were 
appointive for public considerations — not private — and for such 
term as they proved adequate to the discharge of duty properly 
and satisfactorily. 

As to the higher offices — cabinet offices and those intimately 
advisory — Washington said, " I shall not, while I have the honor 
to administer the government, bring a man into any office of 
consequence, knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to 
the measures which the general government is pursuing, for this 
in my opinion would be a sort of political suicide." The Re- 
publican Jefferson and Federalist Bayard both reiterated this 
doctrine in 1800, and took care to exclude from it all subordinate 
ministerial officials. Woolsey in his Political Science says, 
" When the Democratic (Republican) party came into power 
with Mr. Jefferson, the removals were so few that single cases 
excited a sense of wrong through a whole State." John C. 
Calhoun, in his speech in the Senate (1835) on Jackson's 
removals, said, '* Then (Jefferson's administration) the dismissal 
of a few inconsiderable officers, on party grounds as was sup- 
posed, was followed by a general burst of indignation ; but now 
the dismissal of thousands, when it is openly avowed that the 
public offices are the spoils of the victors, produces scarcely a 
sensation." Buchanan said in the Senate (1839), ** I should not 
become an inquisitor of the political opinions of the subordinate 
office-holders who are receiving salaries of some ;^8oo or ;^ 1,000 
a year." 

When the subject was up in the First Congress (1789) Madi- 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. ^33 

son laid down the principles which were generally accepted by 
his contemporaries and uniformly enforced till 1820. They 
were to the effect that the power and duty of making removals 
were equally vested in the President alone, with an authority 
on the part of the House of Representatives to impeach him if 
he should either allow an unworthy officer to continue in place 
or wantonly remove a meritorious officer. Fidelity and efficiency 
were the measure of tenure, as character and capacity were the 
tests of appointments. There was no fixed term and apparently 
no need of any. Washington made only nine removals, and all 
for cause. John Adams made only nine removals, and none, so 
far as is known, for political reasons. 

Jefferson confronted a situation somewhat novel. There had 
been a political revolution. He saw, or chose to see, something 
obnoxious in a few of Adams' appointees, and so removed 
several, among whom was the collector of New Haven. The 
fact that his successor was old and inefficient drew a remon^ 
strance from the citizens, and this a reply from Jefferson, in 
which he said, " Is it political intolerance to claim a propor- 
tionate share in the direction of public affairs ? If a due par- 
ticipation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be 
obtained? Those by death are few, by resignation none. I 
proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry that I may 
injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of justice and 
public utility with the least private distress, that it may be thrown 
as much as possible on delinquency, oppression, intolerance, and 
ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies." Then lamenting 
the fact that he found none of his party friends in office, he pro- 
ceeds, " I shall correct the procedure, but that done, return with 
joy to that state of things when the only question concerning a. 
candidate shall be : Is he honest ? Is he capable ? Is he faith- 
ful to the constitution ? " This is worthy of notice as the first 
announcement by a President of a civil service method to be 
applied to subordinate officials. It has been variously con- 
strued, some choosing to see in it the enunciation of a principle 
which in Jackson's time became the cry of " to the victor be- 
long the spoils," others the doctrine that only honesty, capacity 



^34 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

and patriotic fidelity should prevail in determining appointments 
and removals, perhaps obscured a little by impatience over the 
slowness of time to made desirable vacancies. He made only 
thirty-nine removals, and none of them, as he declared, for politi- 
cal reasons. 

Madison made only five removals ; Monroe only nine ; John 
Q. Adams only two ; and all these for cause. Of course defal- 
cations and inefficiency in office were not wholly unknown, but, 
in general, civic administration was able, pure and respectful. 
No other government had then reached so high a plane of 
fairness in dealing with those who served it, nor exhibited 
greater regard for character and fitness in its subordinate em- 
ployes. 

It seems almost impossible that this early system, so fully 
agreed upon by statesmen and parties, so strongly entrenched 
in our institutions, so supported by custom and practice, should 
shake and crumble. Let it be said with pride that the national 
government, however responsible for its downfall later on, 
was not at first to blame. The blight of the spoils system 
spread to it from the States, and notably from New York. That 
State had gained unenviable fame in the political contests of 
1808, in which Van Buren traded his services to Tompkins for 
a judgeship. The Clintonian school was equally reckless. The 
judiciary was dragged down into the mire of politics. Before 
1830 no State judge had ever gained office by popular vote. 
After that the infection spread, and now the judges of twenty- 
four States are selected at the polls for short terms, though the 
average term has gradually lengthened during later years and 
under the influence of a reaction which was inevitable. 

Profiting by the power which judicious use of patronage 
bestowed, Burr completed the system of political spoils in New 
York by requiring short terms of office, strict partisan tests, 
and servile obedience to leaders on the part of all ofl^cials. 
Even Clinton winced under the organized interference of 
Federal officials with the politics of the State. Civic affairs 
there were characterized by the most desperate and unscrupulous 
management. The new system was not without fascination for 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. g35 

the ambitious. It never has been. Even Jackson, during his 
early aspirations for the Presidency, said, " I am no poHtician, 
but if I were, I would be a New York politician." All this was 
before 1 820. 

In that year the infection of the New York system passed 
from the States to the Federal government. A law was enacted 
which was credited to the joint ingenuity of Crawford and Van 
Buren, both aspirants for the Presidency, and which was clearly 
designed to open political patronage to ambitious and personal 
uses. It was the first law which fixed a term for minor civil 
offices. Changing their constitutional or customary tenure, it 
:gave to district attorneys, collectors, naval officers, surveyors, 
paymasters and several other officers of like or lesser grade a 
term of four years. It declared the commissions of all officers 
dated Sept. 30, 18 14, vacant on the same date of September, 
1820. Thus by retroactive legislation a full line of vacancies was 
secured on the very eve of a Presidential election. The act 
further provided that all these officers should subsequently be 
removable at pleasure. This was rotation for the mere sake of 
rotation, and further it was decided revolution, so far as all pre- 
cedent and all constitutional construction went. Such an act must 
have been impossible, but for the fact that there were no party 
lines at the time, and only a set of political factions or cliques, 
each with aspiring leaders, and each leader anxious to circum- 
vent the other. A marvellous accompaniment of the bill was 
that there never was any previous thought of its introduction, 
no allegation of civic wrong-doing which it was to correct, no 
charge that the President could not or would not remove un- 
worthy officials, not a word of debate over it, not a record of 
votes made on its passage. It moved through both Houses 
with the stealth of a serpent, and brought a civic revolution as 
disastrous as it was degrading. Calhoun on hearing of its pass- 
age declared it '* one of the most dangerous bills ever passed, and 
that it would work a revolution." Jefferson wrote to Madison 
in November, 1820, condemning the' act as introducing fatal 
intrigue and corruption. Madison replied that the law was cer- 
tainly pregnant with mischiefs, and that if the error be not at 



636 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

once corrected, relief will be difficult, for it is of a nature to 
take deep root. John Quincy Adams, President Monroe's 
Secretary of State, gave it out that the President signed the bill 
unwarily and without perceiving its real character, and that in 
spite of it he adhered to the only just and constitutional practice 
of renominating every officer at the expiration of his com- 
mission unless some official delinquency or unfitness was 
proved. He further said, " if the principle of the statute is 
sound, Congress may limit the term of appointments to a 
single year, to a week or a day, and so annihilate the executive 
power." 

Six years after its passage fi826) an effort was made to repeal 
it, but the spoils system had gotten a hold and was gaining 
cankerous headway in the body politic. The act was clearly 
emboldening the spirit which gave it birth. Van Buren, who- 
ranked as the greatest party manipulator of his time, did not 
hesitate to show to what uses it could be put. More cautious, 
men still continued to deprecate party tests for office. Even 
Jackson, as late as 1824, in a letter to Monroe, declined to favor 
such tests. 

By 1828 Jackson, then President, was a thorough convert to 
Van Buren's idea and to the spoils system. So full of the spirit 
of that system was he, that his administration was signalized by 
the removal of twenty times more officials, for partisan purposes,, 
than all who had been removed for any cause since the founda- 
tion of the government. Nor was he even yet satisfied. Thirsty 
for other vacancies, he recommended in his first message, "a gen- 
eral extension of the law which limits appointments to four years." 
Even his most admiring followers shrank from his suggestion. 
That message further declared " rotation a leading principle in 
the Republican (Democratic) creed." Three years later (1832) 
Senator Marcy, in the Senate, and in answer to Clay's taunt that 
the New York system was fully abroad in the national govern- 
ment, entered upon its defense, and used these memorable words : 
" When they (the New York politicians) are contending for 
victory, they avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If 
they are defeate^d, they expect to retire from office. If they are 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. Q27 

successful, they claim as a matter of right the advantage of suc- 
cess. T/iej^ see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong 
the spoils of the enemy!' 

This language seems to have set the seal of political approval 
on the new revolutionary and degrading system of official spoils. 
It was the end of the great leap which civic administration had 
taken backward into the feudal ages. The system at full play 
meant, no tenure for more than four years ; office and salaries 
the spoils of party warfare ; removals at pleasure ; rotation in 
order to give office to as many personal or party followers as 
possible ; appointments and removals for political reasons ; offi- 
cial duty to mean servility to partisan leadership and willingness 
to work for the party. Political assessments were of later 
growth, but a natural outcrop of the ingenious, tyrannical and 
iniquitous system. Such was the origin and spirit of the spoils 
system. 

On account of its " great and alarming strides," Calhoun again 
(1835) moved the repeal of the four years' law. The debate was 
memorable. Webster and Calhoun were arrayed against Madi- 
son, as to the dangerous enlargement of official power, but they 
agreed in condemning the act of 1820. Webster was " for stay- 
ing the further contagion of this plague. Men in office have 
begun to think themselves mere agents and servants of the ap- 
pointing power." White, a supporter of Jackson, declared that 
" under the present state of things, society will become demor- 
alized, the business of office-seeking will become a science, office- 
hunters will come on with one pocket full of bad characters, with 
which to turn out incumbents, and the other full of good char- 
acters, with which to provide for constituents." Calhoun said, 
*' that the most certain road to honor and fortune is servility and 
flattery." Southard declared that the act of 1820 " had tended 
to make office-holders servile supplicants, destitute of independ- 
ence of character and of manly feeling." Benton said, " the act 
had become the means of getting rid of faithful officers, and the 
expiration of a four years' term came to be considered as the 
vacation of all officers on whom it fell." The bill for repeal 
passed the Senate by a vote of 3 1 to 16, but that was the end of it. 



638 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

There has been no later attempt to wipe out this four years' 
law. The Whigs, on their accession to power in 1 840, might 
have been expected to correct a system they had ridiculed, op- 
posed and despised. But they adopted it, and from that time on 
it grew apace until it finally came to be regarded as indispen- 
sable to party success and government. The sons seemed not 
to be alarmed at the dangers which the fathers had apprehended 
from an extended and corrupt official patronage. It remained 
for the grandsons, in view of a vastly extended country and a 
mighty swelling of official numbers, in view of greater tyranny 
on the part of masters and greater dependence on the part of 
subordinates, to strike an effective blow for manhood tenure,, 
merit term, non-partisan place, and only patriotic fealty. The 
anti-feudal doctrine is that public office is a solemn trust, whose 
most important condition is to choose the best possible men for 
the different places. And this has found sanction in our highest 
judicial tribunal, whose language is, " The theory of our govern- 
ment is that all public stations are trusts, and that those clothed 
with them are to be animated in the discharge of their duties 
solely by considerations of right, justice, and the public good." * 

THE FIRST REFORM.— V^Q have seen that by 1853 civic 
appointments in England were based on competitive tests made 
through open examination. In that year a law was passed by 
our Congress dividing the Clerks of the Treasury, War, Navy,. 
Interior, and Post-office Departments into classes, and declaring 
that " no clerk shall be appointed until found qualified by a board 
of three examiners." In 1855 the act was extended to the State 
Department. This was known as the ** pass examination." It 
was not necessarily open nor at all competitive. In practice, it 
was no examination at all. We speedily fell away from the 
policy which the law was designed to establish, and were sooa 
as much at sea as before. 

THE SECOND REFORM. In 1868 Mr. Jenckes, chairman 
of the Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, presented in 
his report a mass of information bearing on the workings of the 
reformed civil service in England. His speeches on the subject 

* Trist vs. Child, 21 Wallace R. 450. 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. g3^ 

arrested the attention of Congress and led to much newspaper 
discussion. His efforts were crowned by the act of 187 1 author- 
izing inquiry into our civil service. President Grant appointed 
a commission for the purpose. A set of rules governing future 
subordinate appointments were proposed by the Commission 
and accepted by the President. They were to take effect Jan. i , 
1872. 

Meanwhile interesting history was being made in the New 
York Custom House. To anticipate it a little, it had been 
found that from 1858 to 1 861 the Democratic Collector had re- 
moved 389 out of 690 appointees. Subsequently, in three years, 
a Republican Collector removed 830 out of 903, and another, 
in sixteen months, had removed 510 out of 892. Every re- 
moval involved a long and demoralizing struggle for place. The 
feeling that any day might be his last in civic service, and that 
merit could count as nothing against political favor or intrigue 
toward securing retention or insuring promotion, repelled the 
most worthy and correspondingly destroyed the manhood and 
reduced the efficiency of those who were successful. The same 
results were manifest in the Post-office, and they were visible 
in all the large cities containing elaborate Federal offices. Gov- 
ernor Cornell declared that one-third of the officials of New 
York could be mustered out with advantage to the public. The 
late President Garfield said, in Congress, that under a judicious 
civil service the government could be carried on at one-half its 
usual cost. President Arthur became Collector in 1 871. He 
was soon convinced that a stable tenure was absolutely essential 
to a reform of the custorns administration. In five years he re- 
moved only 144 officials, and certified to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Nov. 23, 1877, that " Permanency in office, which, of 
course, prevents removal except for cause, and secures promo- 
tion based upon good conduct and efficiency, is an essential 
element of correct civil service," a conviction he reiterated 
in his letter of acceptance as Vice-President, in which he says : 
" The tenure of office should be stable. Positions of responsi- 
bility should, so far as practicable, be filled by the promotion of 
worthy and efficient officers." 



^40 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The system proposed by the Grant Commission was based on 
merit, to be ascertained, in a limited way, by competitive examin- 
ation. It was not received warmly in official circles, though it 
had the President's endorsement. It was therefore placed at a 
great disadvantage, though its good effects were clearly apparent. 
In 1874 the Commission made a report which showed that, as 
far as tried, the system had secured for the service persons of 
superior capacity and character, and had tended to exclude un- 
worthy applicants ; that officials were more ambitious to acquire 
information; that unreasonable solicitation, on the part of appli- 
cants and their friends, of the heads of departments had dimin- 
ished ; that unworthy persons could be more readily dismissed , 
that intriguing pressure for place was less noticeable. The 
President concurred with the Commission's report, and sent a 
special message to Congress asking for ;^25,000 with which to 
continue the work, which met with refusal. 

That this did not arrest the reform sentiment was shown by 
the fact that it exerted a greater influence in the next Presi<iential 
election than ever before. The platforms of the leading parties 
distinctly announced the doctrine that office was a public trust 
arid should be administered only with a view to economy and 
the highest good, and without reference to partisanship and spoils 
In his inaugural President Hayes said : " I ask the attention of 
the public to the paramount necessity of reform in the Civil 
Service ... a reform that shall be radical, thorough and com- 
plete — a return to the principles of the founders of the govern- 
ment." Though no general and uniform system of determining 
minor appointments was adopted during his administration, it 
witnessed, as he was forced along by a growing public senti- 
ment, an abatement of the abuse of Congressional dictation of 
nominations, the overthrow to a great extent of the custom of 
Senatorial cor^trol of State patronage, prohibition of political 
assessments, and prevention of interference in caucusses and 
conventions by Federal office-holders. His administration also 
Witnessed the special application of the merit system, and the 
tests provided by competitive examination, to applicants for 
place in the New York Custom House and Post-office, by which 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 641 

means removals among subordinates for political reasons have 
well-nigh ceased, and a much higher, purer and abler service 
has been secured. 

The Republican platform of 1880 contained a square accept- 
ance of the radical civil service reform announced in President 
Hayes' inaugural. The Democratic platform declared for '' a 
general and thorough reform of the civil service." President 
Garfield reiterated the sentiments of his predecessor, but the 
Congress was very perverse. The elections of 188 1 and 1882 
were reminders that there was a sentiment abroad which would 
not longer tolerate existing political methods. There were 
pending in Congress several bills all looking to civil service re- 
form, the most conspicuous of which was that in the Senate, 
introduced by Senator Pendleton, of Ohio. On Dec. 4, 1882, 
President Arthur sent in a message urging the passage of this 
bill, or some other equally effective. On Jan. 16, 1883, it be- 
came a law by a large majority of the Congress, and went into 
effect July 16, 1883. Since its passage the Legislatures of 
several of the States have had under discussion a similar enact- 
ment, and one or two have passed laws looking to reform in 
their civil service. 

THE PENDLETON LA ^— The act creates a commission, 
composed of three members, appointed by the President and 
Senate, to be known as the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion. They are to provide rules for open competitive examina- 
tions for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service. 
Their duties are fully laid down in the act, which also pro- 
hibits all political assessments, and provides for the appor- 
tionment of officials among the States in proportion to their 
population. 

The Commission was duly appointed and published a set of 
rules in time to put the law in operation, July 16, 1883. They 
divide the subordinate Civil Service of the country into three 
classes, excluding, of course, laborers and workmen, to wit : 
the Department Service at Washington, the Customs Service, the 
Postal Service. This division is not made, nor do the rules 
apply to cities or places, where the officials of any of the last 
41 



642 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

two classes do not number fifty. Examining boards are created 
at certain places, mostly in the large cities, before whom candi- 
dates for place must appear for examination. By addressing 
these Boards, or the Commission at Washington, any applicant 
can find out the conditions on which he will be permitted to 
enter the contest and the manner of conducting the same. The 
examination embraces spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, gram- 
mar, geography, history and the principles of our government. 
The candidates are graded. All falling below an average of 
sixty-five for all the subjects fail. All securing an average of 
sixty-five or over are booked with the Commission for appoint- 
ment. When a clerk is wanted in any place to which the law 
applies, the names of the four highest on the list are sent to the 
chief official, who selects one. And so with other vacancies. 
Examinations are held once a year, or oftener if necessary. The 
clerk accepted or selected is a probationer for six months. If 
then acceptable his appointment becomes complete. Promotions 
are provided for. There is no inquiry into the politics or reli- 
gion of the applicant, but he must give certified assurance of his 
moral and physical character. 

Though the system thus devised is new and somewhat crude 
it promises to develop into substantial reform. The Commis- 
sion have made one report on its results, which is altogether 
favorable. It cannot be doubted that the reform has a substan- 
tial hold on the higher sentiment of the country and a secure 
lodgment in the better judgment of political parties. That it 
will go on in this country, as in England, till it becomes a sub- 
stitute for a system both heartless and rotten is the conviction 
of its originators and friends. What monarchy ripened without 
example and against caste, a Republic should perfect beneath 
the rays of experience and amid the encouragement of a pro- 
nounced sentiment. 

ARGUMENTS FOR.— Observe, the reform thus started does 
not bear on elective officials, nor on Cabinet officers, nor yet on 
a long line of minor appointees who may be called heads of the 
sub or smaller departments both at Washington and throughout 
the country. All these are as yet recognized as belonging to 



CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 643 

the political side of civic administration. The reform is not so 
far on as to attempt to say where the line of separation shall be 
drawn between purely civil and purely political administration. 
Nor does the reform go to the bottom of the Civil Service. 
Where, say a Collector of Customs or a Postmaster has only a 
few clerks he is supposed to know sufficiently about the ability 
of each to judge of their fitness. The reform only begins when 
the clerks number fifty, and it applies to the great intermediate 
body of clerical employes or minor civic officials. Bearing these 
facts in mind, and remembering what room there is yet for the 
extension of the reform system, the arguments relied on by its 
friends are : (i) Public office is a trust to be managed on business 
and not on political principles. (2) It is the right of the people 
to have the worthiest citizens in the public service for the gen- 
eral welfare. (3) Personal merit is the highest claim upon 
office. (4) Party government and the salutary effect of party 
activity are purer and more efficient under a merit system of 
office. (5) A partisan system of appointments and removals 
enfeebles and debases government by parties. (6) Patronage in 
the hands of legislators usurps the executive function and in- 
creases the expense of administration. (7) Non-partisan and 
actual fitness for public place can only be ascertained by compe- 
tent examination. (8) Competitive examination ends partisan 
coercion and official favoritism, and, as has been proved, gives 
the best public servants. (9) Such methods leave to parties 
their true function and use. (10) The new system has raised 
the ambition and increased the self-respect of civic officials. 
(11) Open competition is as fatal to bureauocracy as it is to 
patronage, nepotism and spoils. (12) The merit system raises 
the character of the entire subordinate service, tends to economic 
administration, invigorates patriotism, heightens the standard of 
statesmanship and causes political leaders to look for support to 
better sentiments and a higher intelligence. (13) It is a standing 
rebuke to imbecility and indolence. (14) It is a return to the 
constitutional methods of the early Presidents and statesmen 
(15) It is as practical in a Republic as under any other form of 
government. (16) Elections would turn only on questions of 



644 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

pure men and pure measures, and not on the ability of politicians 
to secure places for themselves or their friends. 

ARGUMENTS AGAINST.— {i) Party ascendency would 
be jeopardized if public patronage were not turned to its account. 
(2) Party success at the polls means preference for its men and 
measures, which carries by implication the right to partisan dis- 
tribution of the spoils. (3) Administration can only do the will 
of the majority effectively through its political friends. (4) A 
line cannot be drawn between purely civic and purely political 
administration. (5) Patronage is an inducement for parties to 
exist and continue in active work. (6) The holder of political 
place should contribute to keeping his place. (7) Political 
activity is proper, and there is always a necessity for men trained 
in politics and political methods, who cannot be had if the in- 
ducement of patronage is removed. (8) Civil Service tends to 
bureauocracy ; that is, to a class of officials who would grow 
indifferent and insolent if their places were permanent. 




POLYGAMY. 

JOLYGAMY presents an intricate problem. There is 
almost a solid moral and political sentiment against it, 
but the problem is of such a nature as to escape this 
and still avoid solution. The truth is there is yet a 
great deal to be learned about it. After one dwells upon 
it long enough to begin to see that it has ingenious, if not plau- 
sible, religious support, his wits are taxed to the uttermost to 
know whether a direct and heroic remedy is easy or possible. 
It is or is not polygamy ; that is, it is or is not a crime amenable 
to law and removable by statute, just as it is or is not an 
essential part of a religion — Mormonism. The moment it 
chooses to sit under the panoply of Mormonism, or use it for an 
aegis, it boldly claims the exemption from interference accorded 
to other religions under Article I. of the Amendments to 
the Constitution, " Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof" 

HISTORY OF MORMONISM.— According to Mormon 
belief, the Lord appeared to Joseph Smith, then fourteen, at 
Manchester, New York, in 1820. Seven years later an angel 
delivered to him certain metal plates on which were engraved in 
Egyptian characters the Book of Mormon. Two transparent 
stones were with the plates, by whose help Smith translated the 
characters into English. The book professed to be an inspired 
record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of America. 
Its style is that of the Old Testament Chronicles. In 1829, John 
the Baptist, and, shortly after, Peter, James and John appeared to 
Smith and a follower, Oliver Cawdrey, and consecrated them to 
the priesthoods of Aaron and Melchizedek. The church was 

(645) 



646 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

first organized at Seneca, N. Y., 1830. The next year the church 
was removed to Missouri. They called themselves Latter-Day 
Saints. Driven from place to place in Missouri, they were 
finally expelled from the State in 1838, and took refuge in 
Illinois, where they founded the town of Commerce. Here 
also they were the frequent victims of mob violence, and their 
town of Nauvoo was raided, resulting in the killing of Smith 
and his brother. Brigham Young, Smith's successor as Prophet, 
resolved to lead the community, which all the while throve amid 
persecution, into a new Canaan west of the great desert and in 
the recesses of the R6cky Mountains. In 1846 the Mormon 
migrants were at Council Bluff, where in compliance with a call 
of the Federal government they sent a battalion of 500, men to 
the Mexican war. In the spring of 1847, Young with 143 
converts started for the new Canaan, to be followed later by a 
train of 700 wagons and the main body of pioneers. The 
journey of 1,000 miles, through a country as little known and 
as hostile as the Arabian desert was to the Jews under Moses, 
was made with success. They pitched their camp at the mouth 
of the canon where Salt Lake City now stands. The new 
Canaan was anything but a land of promise. Lieutenant Sher- 
man with a band of surveyors nearly perished on the shores of 
Salt Lake in 1850 for want of water. The Latter Day Saints 
were, in their imagination, the Israelites of old. They had fled 
from Egyptian persecution, crossed a trackless desert, met with 
miraculous preservations. In their Canaan, to the south, was 
Lake Utah, their Sea of Galilee. Flowing north was their Jor- 
dan, which emptied into the Great Salt Lake, their Dead Sea. 
The site selected for their new Zion was Jerusalem surrounded 
by mountains. The Indians were Philistines. They were hardy, 
industrious, frugal and enthusiastic. Cut off from outward food 
supply, they planted for themselves and fed rather than fought 
the Indians. They built, redeemed the soil by irrigation, and 
throve. 

By 1857 they were a little independent State, though within a 
Territory organized as early as 1850. False knowledge of the 
situation drew the ire of the Federal government. An army 



POLYGAMY. 647 

was sent out to crush them or compel allegiance to the central 
sovereignty. This monumental junketing tour was a farce. 
The Mormons were not the enemies they were supposed to be. 
The troops found nobody to fight. The money, arms and pro- 
visions they introduced helped to advance the struggling 
colony. Their coming was regarded by the Mormons as a 
providence. 

The opening of the Union Pacific Railway in 1870 connected 
Utah with the outside world. Since then the Mormon country 
has rapidly developed. Brigham Young died in 1877, and the 
community lost the prophet, priest and president under whose 
rule Salt Lake Valley had been transformed from a desolate, 
uninhabited wilderness to a richly cultivated and fertile land, 
the home of a prosperous, contented people numbering over 
100,000 souls. 

THEIR CONDITION.— In settling the question of polyg- 
amy or even in entertaining opinion respecting it, care must be 
taken to disabuse our minds of the thought that Mormons are 
outcasts or heathens. The census shows that they have long 
since reached the respectability which numbers give. Utah has 
more people than any other Territory, more than Nevada, and 
as many as Delaware. Mormon colonies exist in Arizona, New 
Mexico, Idaho and Colorado. Their capital is the finest town 
of its size in the West. It is literally embowered in gardens and 
orchards, and streams of flowing water refresh its streets. Their 
villages and farm-houses are models of neatness and beauty. 
They have built 10,000 miles of irrigating canals, and turned 
every mountain stream to the account of agriculture. They built 
400 miles of the Union Pacific Railway, and 600 miles of the first 
transcontinental telegraph line, besides 500 miles of local rail- 
road and 1,500 miles of telegraph. They have extensive manu- 
factures. They mine largely, and cultivate fruits and the cereals 
with success. Their farms are small and the price of improved 
land high. They have a good school system, and over 400 
schools, with an average daily attendance of 44 per cent, of the 
school population. The per cent, of illiterates is lower than that^ 
for the United States at large. They have a university, a female 
seminary and a normal school. 



648 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It is universally admitted by the Gentile population of Salt 
Lake City that the Mormon people are honest, straightforward 
and faithful to business contracts. They are temperate beyond 
any Christian people, temperance in some instances being carried 
to abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and tea. Under a pure 
Mormon regime drinking saloons and other places of vice were 
prohibited. Not a dozen of the 200 saloons now in Utah are 
kept by professing Mormons, and these are held in disgrace. 
Of the population of Salt Lake City 75 per cent, is Mormon 
and 25 per cent. non-Mormon, yet the arrests in 1881 were: 

Mormons. Non- Mormons. 

Men and boys 163 Men and boys 657 

Women 6 Women 194 

Totals 169 85? 

A census of the prisoners in the winter of 188 1 showed in the 
city prison twenty-nine convicts, and in the county prison six, 
all non-Mormon. Out of fifty-one in the penitentiary, only five 
were Mormons, and two of these were there for polygamy, and 
of 125 in the lock-ups only eleven were Mormons, some for 
polygamy. Says a Mormon publication in 1878: " Oaths, im- 
precations, blasphemies, invectives, expletives, blackguardism,, 
were not heard in Utah till after the advent of the anti-Mormon 
element, nor till then did we have litigation, drunkenness, har- 
lotry, political and judicial deviltries, gambling and kindred 
enormities." Among the Mormons all are equal. From the 
President down it is the duty of every man to work for a living. 
This was the Puritan idea, and this Captain Smith enjoined on the 
Virginia colonists by his edict, " he that does not work may not 
eat." Outside of their religion, therefore, the Mormon Com- 
munity is a pious and socialistic organization, if by Socialism in 
practical form is meant a community where each may enjoy the 
benefit of labor and each labor to live, where the weak are not 
trampled upon, and the unfortunate in the battle of life are 
cared for by the community. In all the respects spoken of they 
resemble a dozen other communities toward which greater toler- 
ance exists, though not a whit more moral nor less peculiar. 

THE MORMON CREED.— \N'\\h the exception of polygamy 



POLYGAMY. 049 

the Mormon doctrines do not differ from those of other Chris- 
tians. They rest their claims for non-interference and protection 
on the fact that theirs is not only a religion, but a truly Chris- 
tian religion. Their Church is the " Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-Day Saints." Its leading articles are : 

" We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the 
Holy Ghost. 

" We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's 
transgression. 

" We believe that through the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by 
obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. 

" We believe that these ordinances are : First, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ;. 
Second, Repentance; Third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; 
Fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

" We believe that a man must be called of God by prophecy, and by laying on 
of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the gospel and administer the 
ordinances thereof. 

"We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church, viz., 
apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc. 

"We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, inter- 
pretation of tongues, etc. 

" We believe the Bible to be the Word of God, as far as it is translated correctly^ 
we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. 

" We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and that He 
will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God, 

" We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten 
Tribes ; that Zion will be built upon this continent ; that Christ will reign person- 
ally upon the earth, and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiac 
glory. 

" We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates 
of our conscience, and allow all men J;he same privilege, let them worship how,, 
where or what they may. 

" We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, in 
obeying, honoring and sustaining the law. 

" We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing 
good to all men ; indeed, we may say we follow the admonitions of Paul : We be- 
lieve all things, we hope for all things ; we have endured many things, and hope to- 
be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good 
report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." 

Respecting polygamy the Mormon Confession of Faith merely 
declares : " That marriage, whether monogamic or polygamic, is 
honorable in all, when such marriage is contracted and carried 
out in accordance with the law of God." 



650 BUILDING AND RULING TME REPUBLIC. 

The Church admits the freedom of individual action. There 
is no compulsion beyond public opinion. Apostacy is not a 
crime, nor is it attended with proscription. Members pay tithe 
a? among the Hebrews, and afterwards a tenth of their increase 
for the advancement of God's work. The tithes are devoted to 
the relief of the poor and needy, the building of the Temple, 
and the conversion and transportation of immigrants. The offi- 
cials are the first presidency, with three members ; second, the 
twelve apostles; third, the councils of seventy; of elders, com- 
posed of ninety-six members ; of priests, forty-eight ; of teachers, 
twenty-four; of deacons, twelve. The first presidency and the 
twelve apostles rule the whole Church. The Territory is divided 
into twenty-two " Stakes of Zion," each having its council of 
seventy, of elders, priests, teachers and deacons. All are elected 
annually. Missionaries are sent to all quarters of the globe. A 
missionary goes without salary or travelling expenses. If with- 
out means of his own, he must support himself and work his 
way in his field during his mission, which covers from one to 
two years. From 2,000 to 3,000 Mormon immigrants arrive in 
Utah annually, as the result of missionary solicitation. They 
come from all the countries of Europe, but latterly largely from 
Germany and Sweden and Norway. The Central Church is the 
Tabernacle at Salt Lake City, a monument of engineering skill 
and choice workmanship, 250 feet long by 150 wide. Near it is 
the Temple, which has been under process of erection for thirty 
years, and will take four more for completion. It is of hewn 
stone, unpretentious in design, and is destined to be a per- 
manent reminder of what is deemed an imperishable faith. As 
a church organization Mormonism is closely and adroitly ce- 
mented. It is calculated to gather and hold with a vigor by no 
means common, especially in a field so isolated as Utah, or 
wherever the enthusiasm of religion assumes, as a matter of 
necessity it may be, to make partnership with the social and 
business sides of life. It is organization all through, and religion 
all through, from the least to the highest interest. As a force, 
it has fervor and coherency. It is questionable whether any 
other organization could have made the same conquests over 



. • POLYGAMY. • 651 

rugged and forbidding nature in the same time, or could have 
maintained so steady a front amid apparently insurmountable 
obstacles. 

POLYGAMY PROPER.— This was not an original Mormon 
practice, though the creed, as we have seen, does not prohibit it. 
Reverence for the Bible and respect for its exact letter led to its 
sanction theoretically. Circumstances led to its general adop- 
tion. The drafting of 500 men from the converts on their way 
to Utah, thereby leaving the women in a majority, or without 
legal protectors, may have suggested the propriety of its actual 
practice. The necessity for a more rapid propagation of the 
species than the monogamic marriage afforded, and the desira- 
bility of patriarchal families in the new Canaan, may have 
hastened the growth of the practice. Once fully embraced, it is 
easy to see that it must be defended as a duty, for it concerned 
the social weal and all domestic happiness and comfort. They 
therefore pointed to the Old Testament examples. They asked 
what was meant by the great excess of females in the Eastern 
States and in all full and ripe communities. They declared it 
to be a natural remedy for the evils of prostitution, and a cure 
for marital infidelity. They dropped the term polygamy as 
offensive, and dignified the estate as one of ** plural marriage," 
a contract for earth and sky, time and eternity. They threw 
around this plural and celestial marriage all the solemnity of 
monogamic ceremony, and lest its practice should become un- 
worthy or dangerous, they limited the privilege of undertaking 
it to the virtuous, honest and upright, whorn the bishop and the 
president of the stake should certify as worthy. They gave it a 
paradisiac glamor like the Mohammedans, and as one well-edu- 
cated Mormon was heard to say, " You cannot take your money, 
your railway or mining stocks into the next world with you ; 
but our marriage is not only for life but for eternity, and we 
shall have our wives and our children with us, and so make a 
good start in the world to come." 

If the vows of plural marriage are as sacredly taken as those 
of monogamic marriage, and as sacredly observed, both of which 
Mormons declare them to be, there is a possibility that, in their 



652 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

hands and under their practices, it is less objectionable than the 
polygamous estate of the ancient Jews or that of modern Mo- 
hammedanism. It is certainly true that they regard adultery, 
fornication and bigamy as among the abominable evils, and visit 
on any member known to be guilty of them the penalty of ex- 
communication; that is, he is cut off from the communion of 
the saints and all fellowship in the Church. President Taylor 
boldly asserts " that there is not to-day a more virtuous com- 
munity in the world, or one where female chastity is more 
highly regarded or more vigorously protected." 

Mormons take great pains to controvert the popular notion 
that the plural or polygamous marriage' is illegal. They say 
the Constitution does not touch the subject, but leaves all matters 
relating to marriage to the people of the States. They do not 
admit the right of Congress to regulate these matters, in the 
Territories, but claim that they are of purely local concernment^ 
and of right belong to the Territorial Legislative Assemblies ; 
and in this connection they point to the organic act of Utah, 
** That the legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all 
rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution 
of the United States and the provisions of this act." Resting 
on this they further claim that Congress, acting according to the 
genius of our institutions, cannot interfere with matterJs in the 
Territories, which in the States are left to the States, and that it 
should not pass a law for a Territory which a State Legislature 
cannot pass for its State. When Congress vindicates itself for 
attempting to regulate social affairs in the Territories by point- 
ing to British interference in India for the suppression of the 
suttee (widow burning), the Mormons answer that such inter- 
ference was justified because the suttee brought about destruc- 
tion of life. But they say polygamy means the propagation and 
perpetuation of the human species under the same solemn forms 
as monogamy, nnd they turn the argument on their opponents 
by showing that Great Britain not only tolerates, but has legis- 
lated to protect in her Indian institutions, upwards of 240,000,000 
polygamous subjects. 

Mormons are equally sensitive about the error of confounding 



POLYGAMY. 653 

"bigamy with plural marriage. They, in common with all per- 
sons, look upon bigamy as a grievous crime, whose essence is 
fraud of the very worst type — first vows broken, first wife de- 
serted, second vows falsified, second wife betrayed, officiating 
officers deceived. In plural marriage there is no such flagrant 
deception. All the parties know it to be a doctrine of the 
Church, and all accept the obligations with that understanding. 
First, second, third and all subsequent wives, together with all 
interested in the arrangement, are acquainted with previous and 
existing facts, have a full conception of the nature of the estate, 
and supposably believe in its religious rectitude, its social and 
domestic advantages, its inducements in this and the next world. 
The obligations of the man extend to all his wives alike, and to 
all his children. He is expected to meet them all. That he 
does do so may not be fully proved by the absence of waifs and 
strays in a strictly Mormon community, nor any more by 
absence of a stream of children gravitating unerringly toward the 
poor house — Mormons have no such institution — but wherein 
he fails, the Church or system comes tp his relief with its en- 
dowed charities, administered through bishops and various soci- 
eties. 

The legal status of husband and wife under the plural mar- 
riage is thus set forth by Geo. Q. Cannon, formerly Delegate to 
Congress from Utah : " There is an impression among the unin- 
formed that the man who enters into patriarchal marriage in 
Utah has but little, if any, responsibility connected with it ; that 
upon his partners rest all the burdens and unpleasant features 
of the relationship; that they, in becoming his wives, become 
the creatures of his will, and that, therefore, their civil rights 
are interfered with. This view is wholly incorrect. It is the 
women, under the system of patriarchal marriage, who have 
liberty and not the men. When once marriage has taken place 
between the parties, be the woman ever so poor or friendless, 
ever so much an unprotected stranger in the land, the man who 
knows her takes upon him a life-long obligation to care for 
her and the fruit of the union. For a man to seek for a divorce 
is almost unheard of: the liberty upon this point rests with the 



654 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

woman; and as regards a separation, if her position should 
become irksome, or distasteful to her even, and she should de- 
sire a separation, not only is the man bound to respect the ex- 
pressal of her wish to that effect, but he is bound also to give 
her and her offspring a proportionate share of his whole property. 
They are no longer under his yoke ; but while he and they live, 
they have a claim upon him from which he is never completely 
absolved." 

Again, Mormons are touched with the charge, inherent in 
much of the Congressional action respecting them, to the effect 
that they are not competent to manage the local affairs of their 
Territory in a proper way. They claim that they are honorable,, 
peaceful, industrious, intelligent and religious citizens of the 
United States, and as such entitled to the rights and privileges 
accorded to the same class of citizens elsewhere. They repudiate 
all thought of hostility to our institutions, or of an attempt to- 
establish a hierarchy unrepublican in spirit and inimical to the 
central government. They point with much pride to the charac- 
ter of their Territorial legislation and invite a comparison of it 
with that of other Territories, or even States. And when such 
legislation is impartially examined much will be found in it that 
is commendable. There is no Territorial debt, and the tax rates 
are low. In 1882 "Utah petitioned Congress for admission inta 
the Union as a State. The Constitution, agreed upon in a nine 
days' Convention of seventy-two delegates, was liberal on all 
political, social and religious questions, and might safely be takers 
as a model by any of the Territories. It provided that the right 
to worship God according to the dictates of conscience should 
never be infringed; that no interference with liberty of con- 
science should be permitted; that no religious test or prop- 
erty qualification should be required for any office of public 
trust, or vote at any election, and that no person should be in- 
competent to testify on account of religious belief; that every 
citizen of the age of twenty-one should be entitled to vote at 
State elections ; that women were citizens and might not only 
vote but hold elective offices, being disqualified only as judges, 
jurors and members of the executive department. Liberal as. 



POLYGAMY. g55 

all this was, Congress refused the application, though the vote 
of the Territory on the Constitution was well-nigh unanimous, 
being 27,814 for, to 498 against. 

What has thus far been said of the peculiar institution of 
Mormonism and of that blot upon it known as polygamy, will, 
it is hoped, serve to give the reader an idea of it when viewed in 
its most favorable light. The data used has been drawn largely 
from Mormon sources, or from writers adjudged to be without 
prejudices and impartial. The object in thus presenting it is to 
avoid the charge often made by Mormons, and too often with 
truth, that there is a disposition abroad among anti-Mormons to 
misrepresent them. There is nothing gained by this. No so- 
lution of the serious problem of polygamy can prove satisfactory 
that proceeds on false information or false premise. Nor can 
the government do justice to itself or to that overwhelming 
monogamic and Christian sentiment of the country, if in dealing 
with what is deemed the odious or criminal side of a religious 
institution it .indiscriminately and cruelly crushes all its possi- 
bilities of doing good. 

CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION— The first anti-Po- 
lygamy law was passed in 1862. It simply disfranchised those 
who had contracted plural or bigamous marriages. It was of 
no practical use. Only a small per cent, of Mormons were, and 
are, in the polygamic estate. The next important measure was 
the " Poland Polygamy Bill," which passed the Forty-third 
Congress, First Session, 1874. It created a District Court for 
the Territory, and in addition to the disqualifications of the 
former acts, excluded polygamous persons from the jury box 
when bigamy cases were being tried. Like all other acts thus 
far it failed to have any perceptible good effect. Meanwhile 
public sentiment became more urgent. Polygamy was de- 
nounced in many of the political platforms. In 1882 the cele- 
brated Edmunds Act was passed. It was by far the most radical 
step the Government had yet taken. It defined polygamy and 
provided for its punishment. It laid down a code of criminal 
procedure applicable to the trial of polygamous cases. It took 
away the elective franchise from polygamists, male and female. 



^56 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It provided a commission of five persons, appointive by the 
President and Senate, to enforce the provisions of the act. It 
was thought to be a well-digested and effective act. In its 
practical application it has fallen as short as the others, though 
it has served better than all others to show the country the 
intricacies and true inwardness of the Mormon problem. Its 
constitutionality is now being contested before the Supreme 
Court. The Commission under it succeeded in disfranchising 
some 16,000 polygamic electors, male and female, but the 
monogamic Mormons still constitute an overwhelming majority 
of the voters, and control Utah public sentiment as much as 
ever. 

Other bills have been conceived, and are now pending, look- 
ing to a still more heroic treatment of the situation. But many 
of our best statesmen despair of this species of legislative 
remedy. It is not, thus far, apparent that the true seat of the 
cancer has been reached. Mormonism is not seemingly dis- 
couraged. On the contrary it is, if anything, more ingenious 
and defiant than ever. It is, in all probability, not unlike other 
religions, and especially those of a fanatical type, which court 
rather than dread persecution, and thrive rather than die under 
it. Taking the views of President Arthur as a criterion, some 
more direct and far-reaching remedy must be devised. All 
previous surgery has been too tame — nothing more than 
coquetry with a grave situation. He said in his last message, 
December, 1883, "I am convinced that polygamy has become 
so strongly entrenched in the Territory of Utah that it is profit- 
less to attack it with any but the stoutest weapons which Consti- 
tutional legislation can fashion. I favor therefore the repeal of 
the act upon which the present government of the Territory 
depends, the assumption by the National Legislature of the 
entire political control of the Territory, and the establishment of 
a commission with such powers and duties as shall be delegated 
to it by law." 

SENTIMENT. — It is likely that this conviction and these 
recommendations of the President are the beginning of a new 
order of thought and action respecting polygamy. They cer- 



POLYGAMY. 657 

tainly reflect the ideas of a large and respectable class, who are 
thoroughly tired of piecemeal attack upon an institution which 
they regard as opposed to the spirit of the age and dangerous 
to morality and religion. The merit of the plan would consist 
in its attempt to undermine the genius of the institution. This 
was partly the merit of the Edmunds law, whose central thought 
Avas to prefer Mormon monogamists, in matters of office and 
administration, to Mormon polygamists, well knowing that a 
majority were monogamists. But this preference for mono- 
gamists did not disparage polygamists at all. On the contrary 
they were prouder of the fact that they " lived their religion " 
amid disqualification. Moreover the discrimination had a 
horrible color, for one must ever fail to see how a monogamic 
Mormon who upholds, defends and supports an institution 
that outrages virtue and the law is any better, or as good, 
as the man who, professing a belief, is consistent enough to 
practice it. 

As against this heroic method of treatment Mormonism urges 
(i) That it would be the destruction of republican liberty in Utah. 
(2) That the destruction of the local Territorial government 
would not affect the institution of polygamy, which even now is 
not recognized by .Territorial laws, nor yet by the civil law. but 
which exists ecclesiastically, perpetually and eternally, as part 
of a faith, and with the sanction of the Almighty who established 
it for the benefit of his people and the fulness of his glory. (3) 
That the government cannot so interfere with the local affairs of 
a Territory. 

The first two objections are argumentative, the last legal. 
And as to the last the Constitution says, " Congress shall have 
power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the Territory or other property belonging to the 
United States." The Supreme Court has said, I Peters, 511: 
"* In legislating for them (Territories) Congress exercises the 
combined powers of the general and of a State government." 
Again, 1 1 Otto, 129: ''The Territories are but political sub- 
divisions of the outlying dominion of the United States. Their 
relation to the general government is much the same as that 
42 



g58 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

which counties bear to the respective States, and Congress may- 
legislate for them as a State does for its municipal organizations. 
The organic law of a Territory takes the place of a Constitution 
as the fundamental law of local government." And again, i8 
Watt, 317: "The government of the Territories of the United 
States belongs primarily to Congress, and secondarily to such 
agencies as Congress may establish for the purpose. During 
the term of their pupilage as Territories, they are mere depend- 
encies of the United States. Their people do not constitute a 
sovereign power. All political authority exercised therein is 
derived from the general government. Strictly speaking there 
is no sovereignty in a Territory but that of the United States 
itself. Crimes committed therein are committed against the 
government and dignity of the United States." 

It would appear therefore that the power of the general gov- 
ernment to deal with polygamy or any other question in the 
Territories is ample. It is only its methods that have been 
faulty. The method proposed by the President seems like a 
last resort; or, at least, one which involves the experience 
derived from the failure of all former methods. Some minds 
favor the application of direct force. This would be brutal in 
the extreme, and unworthy the age. Mormons are numerous, 
and fixed. They are not hostile, except as their institution on 
its polygamic side is not in keeping with the spirit of the time 
and law of the realm. The century cannot afford to repeat, in 
enlightened America, either the banishment of the Moors from 
Spain, or the massacre of the Huguenots in France. Another set 
of minds, among which is Mr. Beecher's, favor letting the Mor- 
mons alone, and sending teachers and preachers to establish 
schools and churches in their midst. They argue that if it is 
possible to convert the people of Asia and Africa, it is surely- 
possible to help Utah by gospel influences. These forget the 
fact that Utah is already in possession of as good schools as 
there are in the country, and that there already exist there 
Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, 
and possibly other churches ; but that the latter are dwarfed by 
the dominant faith, and converts are less frequent from than to 



POLYGAMY. (i59 

Mormonism ; and that the former are prosperous only as they 
suit the genius of the people who support them. Joaquin 
Miller, who has given much study to the problem, is of the 
opinion that education will finally eradicate both polygamy and 
Mormonism, but that the Federal government must take the 
system of schools into its own hands, and must at the expense 
of much time and money make it the most enlightened spot 
in the country. Then and then only will the institution wane 
and perish. 

Mr. Barclay, a member of the English Parliament, who made 
a visit to Utah recently, for the purpose of investigating Mormon 
institutions, thinks it is quite unnecessary to get angry over 
polygamy, or to take any doubtful constitutional measures for 
its suppression. He regards its establishment as due to excep- 
tional circumstances, which have long since passed away, and 
whose results will be gradually overcome by the contact of Utah 
with the outer world. He further says, that woman's nature is 
not different there from what it is in other parts of the world, and 
that with the ballot in her hands, she will speedily settle the 
question of polygamy, in which she is more largely concerned 
than the opposite sex, if it should appear to her that it deprives 
her sex of any of its rights, and especially the exclusive right to 
a husband. 

The present Governor of Utah, E. H. Murray, regards the 
entire government of Utah, organized under the act of 1850, 
which created the Territory, as an unlawful government, because 
it is not republican in spirit, but a mixed religious and political 
institution, designed to perpetuate a hierarchy. He charges that 
the Mormons have ingeniously used the republican forms of 
government given them under the organic act, and the political 
rights therein assured, for the purpose of building and perpetuat- 
ing their objectionable faith and protecting their obnoxious prac- 
tices, and that in this respect they themselves are violators of 
the Constitution and the laws of Congress, none of which sanc- 
tion special religions, or can be turned directly to their account. 
If this view be correct, and he supports it with much convincing 
argument, it is easy to perceive why all efforts to uproot Mor- 



\ 



660 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

monism or banish polygamy by penal or prohibitory legislation 
have failed, and why they must prove abortive in the future. 
They do not touch the genius of the institution, are not down to 
its tap-roots. Moreover, if the whole political organization of 
the Territory is thus infected with the religion, exists only to 
perpetuate it and its practices, is unrepublican in spirit and fact, 
and therefore inimical to our institutions, not actively but se- 
cretly, it is difficult to conceive of a remedy short of the heroic 
one proposed by the President, unless, forsooth, we cease entirely 
to make polygamy and the peculiar religion which supports it a 
prominent question, and give it over for solution to the agency 
of time and circumstance. 

A concluding thought is, that the charge made by the Mor- 
mons that all this Congressional interference springs from an 
unholy desire to get the Territorial offices and patronage for 
Federal appointees, as well as the combined Gentile and Mormon 
charge that the failure of remedial legislation is due to unworthy 
and inefficient agents appointed to carry it into effect, would be 
met by a withdrawal of the entire system of Territorial govern- 
ment, and the substitution of a new one to be framed and carried 
on under the auspices of an intelligent and impartial Commission 
until such time as the people themselves could give a guarantee 
that it would be conducted in a republican spirit and according 
to the statutes prohibiting polygamy and every class of crime. 




PROHIBITION. 

HAT IT IS. — Temperance in general is as old as morals. 
As restricted to intoxicating liquors, it has ever been a 
profound sentiment among wise and good men, which 
has found oft and eloquent expression. It runs through 
ever))» grave philosophy, and is a part of every promi- 
nent religion. 

The sacred books of the Hindoo urge total abstinence from 
intoxicants. One of the Buddhist commandments reads : " Thou 
shalt not drink any intoxicating liquors." The Koran forbids 
the use of wines and liquors, and Mohammedans carry practical 
temperance further than any other people. Christianity incul- 
cates temperance, but in no dogmatic form, and quite too gen- 
erally to escape entirely the charge that Christian peoples are 
not essentially temperate. 

No truth is better established nor more universally accepted 
than that intemperance is an evil. There can be no successful 
denial of the fact that it injures mind and body, depraves the 
moral nature, conduces to crime. It is the pronounced enemy 
of the home estabhshment, introducing neglect, discord, estrange- 
ment, bankruptcy and want. It is equally the foe of society and 
the political state, degrading the one and brutalizing and endan- 
gering the other. 

Its evil extent is shown in the formidable figures of pauperism 
in this and other countries, four-fifths of which are credited directly 
to strong drink. It is similarly shown in the statistics of crime, 
a like proportion of which is attributed to drunkenness. While 
these figures are startling, they convey but a slim impression of 
the pernicious results of intemperance. Leaving out the annual 
expenditure for drink, which can only be measured by hundreds 

(661) 



QQ2 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of millions of dollars in this country alone, and which in its most 
favorable light is sheer waste, if not worse ; there are deeper 
seated, and therefore incomputable, results which men and women 
only witness inside of their homes and in the social circle, and 
which are secretly mourned as something worse than death 
itself 

So long as intemperance was regarded- as simply a misfortune 
of the victim, as something over which he had, or ought to have, 
control, and for which he alone was individually responsible,, it 
was treated as a question of pure morals. Society, relying on 
the aid of the church and on such other agencies as were at 
command for convincing men of their error, and establishing in 
them a control of their passions, rested her case, on the argu- 
ment of moral suasion. The argument took many forms, was 
always earnestly pressed, and led to much practical good. It 
certainly elevated the plane of temperance sentiment, fortified 
individuals and communities against drink temptation, and threw 
into stronger contrast the viciousness of intemperance and the 
virtue of abstinence. To this end it is still effectually used. 

But there sprung up the advanced thought, possibly from the 
seeds of long experience, that the victim of intemperance was 
not the only party responsible for the vice, and that his reforma- 
tion, however gratifying personally or socially, was not reaching 
a cause which operated beyond him, and was dragging others 
down. In the new light thrown on the situation, it appeared 
that if temperance agencies were only to be used for the reforma- 
tion of the drunkard, they must have never-ending and hopeless 
employment, for the victim, being weakened in his moral sense, 
is to a certain extent beyond reach of those agencies ; or looking 
on him from a scientific standpoint, he has contracted a disease 
(dipsomania), and is a fitter subject for a doctor than a moral 
reformer. It further appeared that however high, wide, and 
pure the sentiment against drinking might be built by those 
agencies, it was being continually undermined by perpetual in- 
ducement to drink provided by the constant manufacture and 
general sale of liquors. 

Therefore, under the new thought, temperance got to mean 



PROHIBITION. gg3 

vastly more than oratory, pleading and pledges. It left its 
prayerful, expostulating, persuasive abode in the domain of re- 
sults, and, passing over, took a high, inquiring, critical, threaten- 
ing seat in the midst of causes. It grouped the victim, vendor 
and manufacturer of liquors in a common category, and chose to 
see in them all combined the very power for evil it sought to 
smite. This power it would hold responsible as an entirety. 

But this was no longer old-fashioned, simple temperance. It 
was "prohibition," and by this name it came to be known. Pro- 
hibition does not exclude temperance means and arguments. It 
still persuades and instructs, but in addition it invokes political 
aid, seeks to secure prohibitive laws through triumphant party 
agency. It is political temperance. 

Its direct advocates do not as yet embrace all temperance peo- 
ple, for prohibition was a virtual breaking of new ground. In a 
certain sense it was a bold, forward step in the face of many pre- 
judices, and squarely in front of a host of novel and difficult 
questions. It was a confession of lack of faith in the absolute 
efficacy of time-honored and purely moral cures for a great evil. 
It very naturally startled temperance advocates when it asked them 
to shake off ancient party affiliations, renounce political creeds, 
and join an organization whose cardinal tenet may have had the 
charm of novelty, but whose practicability remained to be proved. 
It sought political coherency for thoughts which former genera- 
tions had declined to associate with the ballot. It invoked the 
power of direct law against a manufacture which had all along 
been considered legitimate, and against an occupation which had 
ranked as an industry. It defied the odium of sumptuary enact- 
ments and interference with personal liberty, and claimed all 
legislative measures as justifiable which society needed and de- 
manded for its purification and preservation. It provoked con- 
stitutional objections and met them by the heroic remedy of con- 
stitutional amendments, in the name of peace, prosperity and 
morality. It ceased to regard the liquor problem, from the still 
to the almshouse or drunkard's grave, as one to be treated on 
the basis of an evil simply, but charged it up as a crime to be 
prevented, abated, or punished by vigorous statutes. 



664 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Prohibition had thus much to contend with. But it began 
hopefully and worked energetically. Its voice in the beginning 
was smaller than that first heard against involuntary servitude. 
It lost ten years by the civil war and its after questions. It may 
have lost more time than this by early attempts to carry too 
many reforms at once. It has latterly unloaded its side issues, 
and taken a more central aim. Prohibition, to-day, is an un- 
qualified theme. 

Is there in it or about it that which so commends it to the 
judgment of men as to incline them to make it the basis of a 
great party? If all issues were dropped except that of prohibi- 
tion, could it triumph on its political merits ? Can it ever so 
engage the popular mind as to overshadow all other party ques- 
tions ? If triumphant, could it permanently engraft prohibition 
on our political system ? Is it more to be relied on for effective 
temperance reform than the usual non-political agencies ? These 
questions must be asked, and prohibition must answer. Upon 
the answer hangs its future success. It ought to be encouraged 
by the growing frequency of the questions, and further by the 
fact that, whether they are asked or answered, there is deep 
down in the bosom of the masses a sentiment not by any means 
averse to a fair test of the prohibitive idea. There is no telling 
at what moment this sentiment may respond to some timely and 
masterly touch, or break forth in answer to some clarion calL 
The recent (1883) movement in Ohio was in the nature of a 
revelation. Till then it seemed impossible to keep prohibition 
in sight while the two leading parties were angrily wrestling for 
mastery. It not only appeared everywhere in the midst of the 
din, but gathered cohorts of every political shade, and doubtless 
won at the polls. 

HISTORIC GROWTH.— AW the States tacitly regarded the 
sale of liquors as something outside of the usual line of occupa- 
tions. They therefore assumed to regulate the business, that is, 
keep it in trustworthy hands, for the safety of the citizen and 
society, by granting licenses to approved vendors. This check 
was for a long time regarded as sufficient, or, at least, as much 
of an interference on the part of the State as the matter seemed 
to call for. 



PROHIBITION. 665 

The benefits of a license system were largely lost by failure to 
confer the privilege on responsible persons. It is no longer re- 
garded as an adequate check, or as a source of safety to indi- 
vidual or society. Latterly it has come to be viewed by pro- 
hibitionists as an unwarranted legalization of a criminal traffic 
by the very power whose duty it is to prevent crime. The 
license system and the usual temperance and church agencies 
were the restraints on intemperance, till say within fifty years. 

In 1823 Henry Ware in an address before the Massachusetts 
Society for the Suppression of Intemperance took the ground 
that no power can suppress the evil of intemperance short of the 
*' Legislature of the nation." This is just where the more ad- 
vanced prohibitionists stand to-day. They regard State prohibi- 
tion as well enough in its way, but ineffective for lack of concur- 
rence among the States, and still so if the general government 
all the while permits manufacture, importation and transit of 
liquors. 

Other prominent temperance men, divines and associations 
reflected the above sentiment for many years. In 1837 the first 
effort was made to suppress the license laws of a State, in the 
Maine Legislature. They were denounced as " the support and 
life of the traffic," and a committee reported in favor of " the 
entire prohibition of all sale of liquors, except for medicine and 
the arts." The next year (1838) Massachusetts prohibited the 
sale of liquors in quantities less than fifteen gallons. In the 
same year a move was made in the legislatures of New York 
and Tennessee to abolish license. Connecticut did repeal her 
license laws and threw stronger guards around the traffic. 

LOCAL OPTION. — This agitation of the question set legis- 
lators to thinking. They were not sure of ground much beyond 
the old license system. Constituencies were divided. Some 
were pronouncedly in favor of change, others not. Out of re- 
spect for the popular voice, and in order to shove the responsi- 
bility on the voter, the idea of Local Option got to be largely 
entertained. From 1840 to 1850 may be called the Local Option 
era of temperance. During that period quite a number of the 
States enacted that the people of any township, district or county 



QQQ BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

might vote on the question of license or no Hcense, and their 
decision should be the law till similarly revoked. 

This experiment was necessarily brief, though highly useful in 
an educational sense. It taught the folly of relying on laws 
passed for localities and with no machinery to enforce them ex- 
cept that of the State, which was just as likely to be indifferent 
or hostile as favorable. It taught, further, the futility of an ex- 
periment liable to be interfered with at each annual election, for 
local option was simply a convenience, hardly a substantial 
moral force backed by pronounced and enduring sentiment. 
Moreover, the localities to which it applied were small and their 
efforts were likely to be neutralized by the opposite action of 
surrounding townships and counties. 

DIRECT LAW. — In 1846 Maine enacted a law prohibiting 
traffic in intoxicants under penalties. It failed because the pen- 
alties were only fines, which were paid by vendors who con- 
tinued their business. In 185 1 General Neal Dow proposed the 
" Maine Law." It was passed, and imposed the penalty of fine 
and imprisonment on vendors, as well as authorized the seizure 
and destruction of liquors illegally held for sale. It was re- 
pealed in 1856 and license substituted, but was re-enacted in 
1858 with severer clauses. Its re-enactment was ratified by the 
people by over 20,000 majority. It was thus clinched by what 
all previous temperance laws lacked, viz., a pronounced popular 
sentiment. It has stood, in substance, ever since, subject of 
course to much criticism and to many violations, but by no 
means a disproof of the wisdom of political regulation of the 
traffic. 

Delaware followed Maine with a prohibitory law, in 1847, 
which was declared unconstitutional, but was re-enacted in 1855. 
Rhode Island passed a prohibitory law, in 1852, which was un- 
constitutional. It was amended in 1853 and stood till 1865, 
when it gave way to local option. This was supplanted by 
prohibition in 1874, which only lasted one year. 

The Vermont prohibitory law of 1852 still stands, though re- 
peatedly amended and elaborated till it is by all odds the most 
formidable code on the statute books of the State. 



PROHIBITION. G67 

Massachusetts moved for prohibition in 1852, but her law did 
not stand judicial test. A new law was passed in 1855, which 
gave way to a license system in 1868, but was restored in 1869 
in a milder form. This stood, with various modifications, till 
1875, when prohibition was overthrown by a license system. 

In Connecticut the prohibitory statute of 1854 was repealed 
in 1872. The New York law of 1855 was declared unconstitu- 
tional in 1856 and fell. The modified prohibition laws of New 
Hampshire, passed in 1855, remain. In 1859 Michigan intro- 
duced prohibition into her State Constitution, or rather an anti- 
license clause. She had previously (1853) ratified a prohibitory 
law, whose submission was declared unconstitutional by a di- 
vided bench. This law was re-enacted in 1855, and since then 
has been a constant source of worriment to political parties. It 
"was finally repealed in 1875, and a tax law substituted. 

Indiana passed a prohibitory law in 1853, which was ratified 
by the people, but pronounced unconstitutional. It was re- 
affirmed in 1855, but again fell under judicial displeasure. The 
Iowa law of 1855 was an anti-license measure. Prohibition has 
recently received fresh impetus in the State in the shape of a 
proposed Constitutional amendment and severer enactments 
against indiscriminate traffic in liquors, and the same may be 
said of Wisconsin. In Illinois the prohibitory law of 1855 
failed of approval by the people. Political temperance was active 
in nearly all the States up till the breaking out of the civil war. 
The sketch above given shows where and, to some extent, how 
it culminated in what may be called prohibition States. It will 
be observed that in all, or nearly all, of them it was forced to 
undergo judicial test, and that in many it failed. It will be ob- 
served further that in other States it was an exceedingly fluctuat- 
ing force, really barren of practical results. Only in Maine and 
Vermont has it been steady, and judgment respecting it ought 
to rest on a study of its work in these two States rather than on 
its ephemeral career or signal failure in others. Prohibitive zeal 
may have outstripped discretion in some instances and thus 
drawn judicial disfavor. In other cases it could scarcely hope 
to contend successfully or for any long time with organized 
party forces. 



668 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

There was now a break in the history of prohibition. War 
suspended its aggressive motion at a time when very few of the 
States were averse to fair experiment with it, when, it may be 
safely assumed, there was a strong current of sentiment against 
the old license or regulation system, and when the popular, mind 
was in the midst of intelligent inquiry into all temperance pro- 
posals. 

The thread of its history was taken up again in 1865, and in 
a new shape. Political temperance till this time required the use 
of parties as they were found to exist. It forced situations so 
that one or another of the political organizations came to its 
rescue and helped it to what it demanded. Therefore a larger 
issue, like the war, or any overshadowing measure in a cam- 
paign, drove it into the background. Besides, parties did not 
take to it as a matter of conviction but of policy. They played 
fast and loose with it, used it as a means of discomfiting enemies 
and scoring successes. It therefore appeared useless to depend 
further on agencies so fickle and insincere. Moreover, these 
were only State or local efforts. The success of any one did not 
assure general amelioration of the drinking evil. It must be at- 
tacked nationally if its very roots were to be cut. Again, it 
must be confronted with a party which could be relied upon — a 
party of its own. 

As impelling to this end the open opponents of prohibition 
had organized for their protection both in State and National As- 
sociations. The Beer Brewers' Association was formed in 1862. 
It mentioned among the dangers which threatened their interests: 
" The progress of the prohibition cause, through whose agency 
thirteen States had enacted the * Maine Law,' and more than a 
million voters had been pledged to its support." This was re- 
garded as carrying " temperance into politics " by the very ele- 
ments which had all along deprecated such an aim. It was 
therefore accepted as a challenge. 

All along temperance had been using the agency of various 
societies, chief among which was the Good Templars. In 1868 
the Grand Lodge of this body moved for "the organization of a 
national political party whose principle should be prohibition of 



PROHIBITION. 6g9 

the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating liquors to 
be used as a beverage." This was very nearly reflected by the 
Sixth National Temperance Convention, at Cleveland, July 29, 
1868. The next year, during a session of the Grand Lodge of 
Good- Templars, at Oswego, N. Y., a meeting of those favorable 
to independent political action was held which resulted in a call 
for a convention to organize a " National Prohibition Party." 

This convention met in Chicago, Sept. i, 1869, with five hun- 
dred delegates present from twenty different States. There was 
but little opposition to the thought that both, or all, the existing 
political parties could not be depended upon to foster prohib- 
ition ; that the only way to further care for it was to intrust it to 
a new and distinct party, and that the time was ripe for the for- 
mation of such party. Said the Chairman, Hon. James Black : 
*' I see no party that is taking up this warfare, hence I am in 
Chicago to-day to help form this party of liberty and civiliza- 
tion." The resolutions adopted the name of the "National Pro- 
hibition Party," and declared " that inasmuch as existing political 
parties either oppose or ignore this great and paramount ques- 
tion we are driven by an imperative sense of 

duty to sever our connection with them and organize ourselves 
into a National Prohibition Party, having for its primary object 
the entire suppression of the traffic in intoxicating drinks." 
Hon. Gerritt Smith, in his " address to the people of the United 
States," authorized by the convention, classed drunkenness with 
slavery, and argued that inasmuch as it was the province of 
government to protect person and property, it was therefore its 
duty to suppress the dram-shop. He regarded the time as 
propitious for the new party, because political lines had been 
relaxed, and no other prominent measure was pending. 

The future of the new party was intrusted to a National Com- 
mittee, who issued a call for its '' First National Nominating 
Convention," to be held at Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 22, 1872. 
This body went through all the forms of a regular political con- 
vention. It nominated Hon. James Black, Pa., for President, 
and Rev. John Russell, Mich., for Vice-President, and published 
a platform of principles, announcing as cardinal doctrines the 



670 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

moral and political wrongfulness of the liquor traffic ; the inefifi- 
cacy of a license system, and reliance on State and National 
prohibition. It took high ground on other questions, among 
which was the election of President, Vice-President and Sen- 
ators by direct vote of the people, and female suffrage. This 
ticket received 5,608 votes at the polls. The number received, 
or rather returned, must not be regarded as a measure of the 
prohibition sentiment of the country, but rather as expressive of 
the hopelessness of a first trial amid supreme odds. 

A second nominating convention of the " Prohibition Reform 
Party" — observe the name is changed — was called for May 17, 
1876, at Cleveland. It nominated Hon. Green Clay Smith, Ky.^ 
as the party candidate for President, and Hon. G. T. Stewart, 
Ohio, for Vice-President. The platform affirmed that of 1872, 
and demanded that the government should enforce prohibition 
in the District of Columbia and the Territories. The ticket re- 
ceived 9,522 votes in the Presidential contest. 

The third nominating convention of the party was held at 
Cleveland, June 17, 1880, which placed Hon. Neal Dow, Me., in 
nomination for the Presidency, and Rev. H. A. Thompson, Ohio, 
for the Vice-Presidency. This ticket received 10,305 votes. It 
is the purpose of the party to pursue its political work, and to 
this end it has national candidates in the field this year, as well 
as candidates in many of the States. As auxiliary to its political 
work there has been formed a National Prohibition Alliance, 
whose object is to educate the people to the use of the ballot as 
a means of securing prohibitory legislation. Whatever may be 
said of prohibition in its strictly political sense, one cannot help 
admiring the energy and pluck of its advocates. They are men 
of more than ordinary intelligence, and have the courage of deep 
and abiding convictions. They may have been indiscreet in the 
political manipulation of their cause in the States, at certain 
junctures, and at other times may have lost more than they 
gained by the intolerance which is inseparable from burning zeal, 
but in general they have learned and advanced as other great 
organizations and movements have done. Progress up toward 
prohibition has been, on the whole, steady and by strictly logical 



PROHIBITION. g71 

steps. The first National convention in the country (i83'3) 
rested on the immorahty of the sale and use of intoxicants. The 
second one (1836) declared for a total abstinence pledge as a 
corrective. The third (1841) attacked license and regulation. 
The fourth (185 1) declared for prohibition on the basis of the 
" Maine Law." The fifth (1855) repeated the work of the fourth. 
The sixth (1868) called for the ballot as the only effective pro- 
hibition weapon. The seventh (1869) culminated in a National 
Prohibition Party. This party must itself make great progress 
along intelligent and assuring paths before it can hope to so 
dominate sentiment as to secure a favorable expression of 
popular will through the medium of the ballot. It must not 
only pass through many a Red Sea of trouble, but make many 
long and tedious marches and countermarches in the deserts of 
opinion and controversy. 

FOR AND AGAINST.— yi^wMox^ of controversy suggests 
that this may be very properly called the controversial era of 
prohibition. The more it makes itself conspicuous in a political 
sense the more criticism and antagonism it invites. As it pushes 
itself into national, State and local campaigns it assumes the 
responsibility of discussion. Being on the aggressive, it cannot 
shirk the burden of proof. Happily for all interested, these con- 
troversies can be carried on more intelligently and satisfactorily 
than formerly, for prohibitive experiments in the States have 
been sufficiently numerous to afford valuable data for illustra- 
tion and argument. It is pleasing to note a gradual dropping 
of the dogmatic tone on the part of many really able prohibi- 
tionists on the one hand, and on the other a gradual departure 
from the aerial sensationalism which marked an emotion but 
mocked an argument. As its men, in their new departure, get 
knocked about in the arena of politics, either as candidates or as 
campaign orators, they learn the proprieties of intellectual com- 
bat and lose the spirit which would force a dogma in fresh, un- 
digested and irreceivable shape on the popular mind. *' 'Tis 
right, therefore take it," is not the modern prohibition dose ; but 
rather, '' Come, let us reason together ; my cause hath merit, of 
which I may be able to persuade you." 



672 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

As stated in the beginning of this article, not all temperance 
people are agreed as to the practicability of prohibition. A large 
and vigorous temperance school still relies on agencies which 
are classed as moral and regards them as the only effective ones. 
Its members draw a distinction between vices and crimes. They 
do not see in the liquor traffic a harm done with malice prepense. 
Therefore they do not see a crime which law can assume to 
punish. They see only a vice, which is the subject of moral 
correctives. They say that no law can make a crime of a vice, 
or if so, that such law must fail of its object, just as the fugitive 
slave law and the Spanish laws against Protestantism did. They 
argue that if one vice is punished by law all may be, and in that 
event the last man would have to reach out through the cell 
door and lock himself in, for we are all guilty of vices. To 
this the prohibitionists answer, if the law which makes a vice a 
crime is backed by intelligent sentiment, a crime it must be. We 
propose to make such a sentiment. We refuse to regard liquor 
as other than the dynamite of modern civilization, all promis- 
cuous or illegitimate dealing in which is criminal and worthy 
of punitive suppression. 

The same school refuses to accept the workings of prohibition 
as conclusive. For instance. Dr. Dio Lewis, the originator of 
the " Woman's Crusade " movement, says that the '* Maine Law " 
has only suppressed the rum traffic in the State on the surface, 
and that the official report of the State Prison Inspectors, for 
the year of his visit, showed 17,808 arrests for street drunkenness 
out of a population of less than 700,000. He continues : ** From 
that hour I had no difficulty in believing all that had been said 
about the cunning tricks of the business men in Maine ; about 
the private drinking-clubs — eighty-six in Portland — many of them 
in large rooms over stores, each member of the club carrying a 
pretty key, showing it with pride, and chuckling over the helpless- 
ness of the constable who might come to the door which that 
key unlocked. I have had no difficulty in believing that this 
has great fascination for young men, and in believing the state- 
ment made to me in Maine by one of her most eminent citizens, 
a warm prohibitionist, to the effect that prohibition, like other 



PROHIBITION. 673 

good things, had its drawbacks, the worst of which was that a 
great number of the better class of young men, who would 
never drink in an open saloon, had become victims of the drink- 
ing-clubs." 

This is met by Neal Dow and prohibitionists of his advanced 
school by square denial. Others who concede its truth, in great 
part, claim that they seek an absolute remedy in National pro- 
hibition first and then in State prohibition, or in general State 
prohibition. Their thought is suppression of the traffic all along . 
the line. Local suppression in the midst of hostile surroundings 
must always partially fail. Such partial failure, however, does 
not shake the principle involved nor operate as a discourage- 
ment. 

The popular antagonism to prohibition is based on its inter- 
ference with personal liberty. This is always plausible. And 
in so far as the measure of liberty for the individual is every- 
where the measure of liberty in society it is not easy to meet. 
The prohibitionists say, " We rejoice in the utmost liberty, if 
people will only do right." This is excellent in the abstract, 
but practically their standard of right is the one which must be 
subscribed to. Their position is therefore not unlike that of the 
Puritan, stout advocate of personal liberty, but to whom a 
Quaker was a fellow with wrong views and worthy to be hung. 
To this argument the prohibitionists answer, " We do not seek 
to force our opinions to the verge of interference except as they 
are embodied in laws." Then the doctrine of personal liberty 
is quite another thing, for it is as civil liberty is, to wit, " natural 
liberty so far restrained by human laws as is necessary and ex- 
pedient for the general advantage of the public." All other 
notions of personal liberty would admit a right to do wrong, 
and would rise as excuses for crime of every kind. 

To the argument that prohibition legislation is odious because 
it seeks to establish sumptuary laws, the reply is prompt that 
the sumptuary acts which formerly brought odium on law-givers 
and which were inherently tyrannical were those which limited 
the necessities of life, as food, furniture, clothing, etc. Laws 
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of a deadly poison or of 
43 



674 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

an article generally destructive of health and morals, or danger- 
ous to the peace and well-being of society, are not sumptuary 
in their nature, not at all tyrannical. The public good is the 
supreme law. 

Much is made of prohibitive experiments in other ways. 
Kansas is conspicuous as an instance of triumphant political 
prohibition. It was inserted in the State Constitution. A gov- 
ernor was elected for two terms on a distinctive prohibition issue. 
It looked as if the principle had a political basis which could 
not be shaken. But it failed finally to float a candidate into 
gubernatorial honors, failed as a party measure. Why it failed, 
is a great question. The sentiment was not a real, but a curious 
or experimental one, says one. It was the sentiment of indif- 
ference to results, says another. It was a sentiment tired of 
prohibition persistency, and willing to see it fail of a trial, says 
a third. The true answer is doubtless yet to be found. In 
finding it much will be learned, much profit will ensue. There 
should be no apology for the failure, nor any whimpering about 
the defeat — they were signal — but an intelligent quest for causes 
and speedy effort to remove them. What is desirable in the 
abstract may in its practical application prove both obnoxious 
and injurious. 

The Vermont experiment is not much quoted, though it has 
been lengthy — thirty years, — received a popular majority, and 
has never failed to secure legislative countenance. The pro- 
hibition code there is simply formidable. It prohibits the manu- 
facture of spirituous and malt liquors, and the sale or giving 
away of the same. Cider must not be sold at any place of 
public resort, nor may a man furnish liquors to a minor in 
his own house. Ingenuity has been taxed to the uttermost to 
throw guards around the traffic. Perhaps it has been overdone. 
It is said on good authority that the law is practically a dead 
letter, and that 446 liquor-shops are open in the State. Efforts 
to enforce the laws are spasmodic and short-lived. There is 
hardly a sentiment against them, but none for them. The com- 
munity is oppressed with the dead weight of indifferentism. 
Here prohibition is really to blame. It suffers its case to go by 



PROHIBITION. ^75 

default. If a living thing, its vitality should not so ebb and 
flow as to invite the rebuke of inordinate spasm and correspond- 
ing relapse. 

The Ohio controversy has been lengthy and perhaps broader 
and more profitable than any other. It is yet open and is enlist- 
ing the attention of all thinkers. We cannot pursue it, but it 
has brought prohibition to face some of its profoundest problems. 
The Scott law imposed a very high, license, by which the num- 
ber of saloons were reduced some 3,000 in number. It also 
contained a local option clause. In addition to this a prohibitive 
amendment to the Constitution was urged — and as some think 
was carried, at the last election. This was the political phase 
of the situation. It has given rise to the thought that such 
amendment as was anticipated would have prevented legislative 
action in the future on the basis of popular opinion. It has 
opened the question of how far the dram-buyer is particeps 
criminis with the dram-seller and manufacturer. It has started 
the inquiry as to how prohibition can be made operative against 
the manufacturer of spirits for the arts. It has raised the 
question of how far the State or nation can interfere with a 
traffic which has sprung from a demand of a large part of the 
community, without making itself responsible for the losses that 
ensue. 

Other questions, equally vital, will doubtless arise before 
prohibition achieves its final victory. They must all be met 
with becoming spirit. Every day's march is provocative of 
deeper inquiry, and the more formidable prohibition becomes the 
more it will be called upon to square itself with laws, times, in- 
stitutions and constructions. If a political force with a future, 
it must not only be moral and intelligent, but practical. 

GENERAL PHASES.— Whatever the sentiment of the 
country or of individuals respecting prohibition, the fact must be 
faced that in its new nationally political form it is a broader and 
deeper movement than in its old form of local and sporadic 
prohibition. It is no longer ** hurricane reform," but rather a 
silent force operating along clearly defined lines of progress, and 
gradually nerving itself for a final clash with the conservatism 



676 15UILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of existing political parties and even the angry personalism of 
an industry involving millions of dollars. No man ever dreamed 
of the existence of 320,000 prohibition votes in Ohio, nor of a 
tenth of that number, till the election of 1883. If a sudden 
dissolution of parties should come about even now, it is more 
than likely that they could be instantly reformed on the basis 
of progress and conservatism, prohibition standing for the former 
and license or non-interference for the latter. Alcohol is not 
only in politics, but apparently in to stay. 

In addition to the regular political steps already taken toward 
a national prohibition convention in 1884, for the nomination of 
candidates for President and Vice-President, the ladies of the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union of the United States 
thus memorialized the Republican Convention at Chicago : 

To the National Convention of the Republican Party : We the members of the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union of the United States, herein represented by 
the signatures of our officers, while beHeving that while the poison habits of the 
nation can be largely restrained by an appeal to intellect through argument, to the 
heart through sympathy and to the conscience through the motives of religion, 
believe that the traffic in those poisons will be best controlled by prohibitory law. 
We believe that the teachings of science, experience and the golden rule combine 
to testify against the traffic in alcoholic liquors as a drink, and that the homes of 
America, which are the citadels of patriotism, purity and happiness have no enemies 
so relentless as the American saloon. Therefore, as citizens of the United States, 
irrespective of sex, or religion or section, but having deeply at heart the protection 
of our homes, we do hereby respectfully and earnestly petition you to advocate and 
adopt such measures as are requisite to the end that prohibition of the importation, 
exportation, manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages may become an integral 
part of the national Constitution, and that your candidate shall, by character 
and public life, be committed to a national prohibitory constitutional amendment. 




PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 

ATURE OF THE SUBJECT.— This chief of living ques- 
tions in our economy and politics is compound in sub- 
stance and form. In form its parts take the shape of a 
case in court between plaintiff and defendant. In sub- 
stance it covers two distinct branches of economic 
science, to wit, the relation of labor to capital, and the principle 
of taxation. 

LABOR AND CAPITAL.— Touching these, the question 
has its broadest significance. There is practically no limit to its 
range. In this field doctrinaires spin their fondest theories, and 
practical men pile up their cherished facts and figures. Parties, 
even, shape their lines on the basis thus afforded, and make the 
political arena ring with arguments of refutation and pleas for 
recognition and support. 

FREE TRADE.— But let it be understood that Free Trade in 
the abstract is confined only to bookish theorists. In this, its 
fullest sense, it means open, unrestricted commerce with all 
nations. As to ourselves, and within the limitations of our sub- 
ject, it means the opening of our ports to the free importation 
of foreign manufactures and direct competition with the richer 
capital, riper machinery, and cheaper labor of older countries. 
This is not, as yet, advocated by any political party in this country, 
though it is contained, as a germ, in most of the anti-protection 
arguments. Those who pass for Free Traders, and who must 
be called such since popular speech thus best distinguishes them, 
in general recognize the right, and propriety, of a duty on 
imports for the purpose of supplying the government with 
necessary revenue. Controversially they enter the field of cap- 
ital and labor, practically they are only within that of taxation. 

(677) 



678 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

The fostering of our industries, in other words protection, is an 
incident of taxation, not an object. How long they can resist 
the tendency of their arguments and refrain from a final plunge 
into abstract Free Trade remains to be seen. 

PROTECTION.— On the other hand it should be understood 
that Protection, from its very inception till now, embraced the 
principles of taxation, and, taking advantage of them as a founda- 
tion, built thereon a system designed to encourage the develop- 
ment of home resource. While all agreed that duties on im- 
ports were the least burdensome of indirect taxes, and therefore 
the most cheerfully paid, Protection made them a discrimination 
against Joreign peoples and turned them to the account of our 
own. It at first vindicated the procedure by the example of 
other countries and by the desirability of commercial and indus- 
trial independence. Now it vindicates its position by reference 
to what it has achieved in the domain of capital and labor. It 
is the doctrine of a school, which uses the flag and discipline of 
a political party, but whose scholars are found in all parties. In 
fact it has not been inaptly distinguished by the terms "Ameri- 
can Idea," and "American System." 

TAXATION. — The easiest approach to both the history and 
principles of Protection and Free Trade is through the word 
" Tariff." It is the Arabic word ta'rif, " information," either 
because it was the list of goods on which duties were levied, or 
the name of the town or post, " Tarifa," on the coast of Spain 
where the Moorish authorities kept watch and gave information 
of vessels sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, on whose 
cargoes they were accustomed to levy taxes. These Moors left 
their numerals and this word tariff as a legacy to the civilized 
nations of the world. The refinements of trade have given the 
word tariff a definite meaning. 

All taxes are divided into direct and indirect. Indirect taxes 
are those levied on goods in passing from hand to hand — say 
from manufacturer to consumer, or from importer to consignee. 
It would be better for our purposes to say that all taxes afe 
internal or external. External taxes are those levied on imports 
from, or exports to, a foreign country. They are what the Con- 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 679 

stitution means by " duties " and "imposts," in the clause, " The 
Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, ditties^ im- 
posts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common 
defense and general welfare of the United States." They are 
also covered by the word " Tariff," but since export taxes 
are exceptional, Tariff has come to signify the taxes on im- 
ports alone, and also the law or system under which such 
taxes are levied. All civilized nations have a tariff of some 
kind. 

TARIFF. — This tariff, indirect or external tax, was formerly 
used by nations as a source of revenue alone, and frequently in 
a spirit of booty. But as soon as they began to have intelligent 
notions of trade, and of internal development, it became an 
economic force. Legitimate trade may be said to have taken its 
rise in England under the auspices of Elizabeth. Its rapid pro- 
gress there must be ascribed, in a great measure, to the fostering 
care of the government, exercised through and by means of 
tariff regulations. From a different spirit in her institutions, 
though with superior advantages, France, at a later period and 
under the endeavors of her ingenious and indefatigable Colbert, 
laid the foundation of her industry and commerce. The estab- 
lishment of the woollen industry in a country, where nature 
seems to have denied the means, has always been alluded to by 
statesmen as an evidence of what can be effected by patronizing 
administration and a truly fostering government. The Dutch, 
who were pre-eminent in industry and trade, ever made them an 
essential object of State. Their government was paternal in the 
extreme, and their regulations more numerous than those of any 
other country. And so with other peoples, after trade became 
legitimatized, and industry responsive to regulation. The tariff, 
in one shape or another, was the great regulating lever, and the 
main source of encouragement. Since unified Germany has 
come upon the map, she has resorted to special tariff enactments, 
which involve protective features. Italy has had recourse to 
higher tariff laws, in order to encourage lagging industries. 
France, after having for a long time relaxed her earlier regula- 
tions, has returned to them as a means of industrial revival. 



680 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

There are but three countries in all Europe, beside England, that 
are not protective — Turkey, Switzerland and Norway. Turkey 
is now insisting on higher rates of duty. 

THE ENGLISH POLICY.— Ih^ old English system of ton- 
nage and poundage laws, of protective tariffs, and of commercial 
regulations, was severely in her own favor. It embraced over 
four hundred Acts of Parliament, and was administered without 
respect to the rights of any other nation, but solely for her own 
industrial and commercial welfare. She did not hesitate to make 
her tariffs prohibitive, nor to directly prohibit the exportation 
of articles which might teach inferior nations the skill of her 
own. There is no record of a protective system so selfishly 
woven and tyrannically administered as hers, if we except the 
absolutely exclusive and despotic system of China; nor of one 
so persistently sustained till it gave her the manufacturing and 
commercial supremacy she courted. This point reached, as to 
commerce by 1825, and as to manufactures by 1846, she resorted 
to a change of policy. We shall see hereafter how she turned 
her American colonial policy to protective account. Let us see 
how she protected her iron. From 1782 to 1795 the duty on 
foreign bar iron was over ;^I2 per ton. In 1797 it was over ^14 ; 
from 1798 to 1802 over ;^I5; from 1806. to 1808 over $2^,; 
from 1810 to 1812 over ;^24; in 1818 over ;^28. By 1825 the 
duty was £6 los. per ton if imported in British ships, and 
£"/ i8^\ 6d. if imported in foreign ships. Other manufactured 
iron paid ;^20 ($go) per ton ; and iron not otherwise enumerated 
paid ;^50 for every ;^ioo worth imported. All of these rates 
were then not only protective, but prohibitive, and they serve as 
an index to the policy which prevailed as to other industries 
which she designed to foster. 

MODERN ENGLISH POLICY.— Th^ change from pro- 
tection of the most studied and persistent kind to a policy of 
free trade came, after the former had given her wealth and a 
mighty reserve capital, multiplied her industries^ fostered inven- 
tive skill, carried her fabrics to perfection, and enabled her to 
dominate the markets of weaker, less skillful, wealthy and inde- 
pendent nations. " Her own markets for her own wares/' was 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. ggl 

the motto so long as they were in danger of competitive inva- 
sion by others. A number of her writers on poHtical economy, 
for more than half a century prior to 1846, had inclined to the 
doctrine of free trade. Her statesmen followed in their wake 
and gradually changed the character of her tariff legislation. By 
the . latter date free trade in manufactures was the accepted 
dogma. Free trade treaties had been effected with a few of the 
leading countries — notably France — but these were not, in gen- 
eral, renewed. For a time she hesitated about her commercial 
supremacy, owing to the cheapness and facility with which* 
Americans built fast sailing ships. But during the transfer from 
wooden sailers to iron steamers — a transfer which, in America, 
was unfortunately retarded, or rather whose prosperous beginning 
was prevented, by the civil war — she took a decided lead. By 
means of enormous subsidies, covering a period of twenty years, 
she destroyed the effect of all legitimate competition, and created 
for herself a monopoly in building and operating a steam iron 
marine. After this the principle of subsidies, like that of pro- 
tection to her manufactures, was no longer insisted upon. She 
became free trade all through, and immediately set up to in- 
doctrinate the world with her newly assumed and thoroughly 
selfish dogmas. Her Cobden Club, an association of British 
noblemen, was formed in 1866. Its avowed object is interfer- 
ence with the protective policy of newer, weaker and less favored 
nations, and their conversion to English free trade notions. Not 
content with arguments scattered abroad in tracts and books, 
this club, which counts among its numbers 200 members of 
Parliament and 12 of the 14 Cabinet ministers, has established 
agencies in different parts of the United States, for the purpose 
of operating directly on our politics, especially in congressional 
districts. In its issue of July 16, 1880, the London Times said: 
" It is to the New World that the Cobden Club is chiefly look- 
ing as the most likely sphere for its vigorous foreign policy. It 
has done what it can in Europe, and it is now turning its eyes 
westward and bracing itself for the struggle which is to come. 
It cannot rest while the United States are unsubdued." 

BRITISH COIONIAL POLICY.— Td^ri^, in some shape, 



gg2 BUILDING AND RULING Til?: REPUBLIC. 

prohibitive, protective or general, was the w^dge which forced 
colonial America from her British allegiance. Says McCuUoch 
in his Commercial Dictionary : ** It was a leading principle in the 
system of colonial policy, adopted as well by England as 
by other European nations, to discourage all attempts to 
manufacture such articles in the colonies as could be provided 
fdr them by the mother country." Says Bancroft, " England, 
in its relations with other States, sought a convenient tariff; in 
the colonies it prohibited industry." An Act of Parliament in 
1750 prohibited as a common nuisance the erection of any mill 
in America for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to 
work with a tilt hammer, or furnace for making steel. So the 
making of nails was prohibited in Pennsylvania. Even to 1776, 
England, according to Adam Smith, " prohibited the exportation 
from one province to another by water, and even the carriage 
by land, upon horseback or in a cart, of hats, of wools and 
woollen goods, of the produce of America, a regulation which 
effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of 
such commodities for distant sale, and confines the industry of 
her colonists in this way to such coarse and household manu- 
factures as a private family commonly makes for its own use or 
for that of some of its neighbors in the same province." 

After the invention of the puddling furnace and rolling mill 
by Henry Cort, we find English statutes (1785) prohibiting the 
exportation of tools and utensils to foreign parts, the migration 
of workmen skilled in manufactures, and (1799) even of colliers 
who mined her coal. The first complete rolling mill in America, 
erected at Plumsock, Fayette county, Pa., for Col. Isaac Meason, 
was built and started by two Welshmen, Thomas and George 
Lewis, who came under the head of British skilled iron-workers, 
and as such were compelled to "smuggle" their passage across 
the Atlantic. 

We are all more or less familiar with the English methods of 
exacting revenue from her American colonies, by Tea Acts, 
Stamp Acts, etc. They were but a part of that stupendous 
system of home protection and foreign discrimination which ens 
riched England and built up her manufactures and commerce at 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. ^83 

the expense of other nations. By no act or thought did she 
encourage agriculture in America, though she seemed to know 
that this country would in time become her granary. No sooner 
was this proved, under the auspices of independence and in the 
midst of circumstances she could not control, than she set about 
to build up rival markets in other, and newly planted, colonies. 
How well she has succeeded in India and Australia ought to 
appear clear from the fact that her wheat supply from these two 
sources for 1883-4 so nearly equals her demand as to leave our 
splendid surplus of 80,000,000 bushels almost untouched, or 
subject to a tardy movement at ruinous figures. 

THE AMERICAN THOUGHT. — CoXom^X independence 
meant escape from this discriminative and ruinous British policy. 
There was hardly a colonial debate that did not inveigh against 
the selfish efforts of England to enrich herself at the expense of 
other nations, and to complete her industrial and commercial 
supremacy by overriding their protective systems and sapping 
their powers for independent, competitive existence. A prime 
fact mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and " sub- 
mitted to a candid world " as proof that Great Britain designed 
to establish " an absolute tyranny over these States," was " cut- 
ting off our trade with all parts of the world ; " and among the 
rights of a free people is mentioned that to " establish commerce." 

The most fatal defect of the Articles of Confederation was 
absence of power to collect revenue, regulate trade, encourage 
industry. The thoughts of all our early statesmen were turned 
to this defect, which to them was the more glaring, because of 
intimate acquaintance with the British system. So paramount 
was the necessity for escape from industrial and commercial de- 
pendence, and so momentous was deemed the power to protect 
ourselves that Washington confidently looked to the trade regu- 
lations of a more efficient government as a means of giving the 
country its proper weight in the scale of empires, and, with a 
feeling foreign to his better nature, he declared that such govern- 
ment " will surely impose retaliating restrictions, to a certain 
degree, upon the trade of England." 

The proceedings of the Continental Congress abound in de- 



684 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

bates, resolutions and committees, having for their object the 
promotion of home products and the development of home re- 
sources. There seemed to be no question, among the leaders 
of thought, of the right and duty of a government to foster in- 
dustry by legislative enactment, nor of the necessity for a new- 
government endowed with ample power to provide revenue 
through a tariff and at the same time protect all its vital interests. 
THE FREE TRADE ERA.—^\xt this sentiment was not 
universal. Abuse of this power on the part of England had led 
to revulsion against it in the minds of the mercantile community. 
They needed the experience of the free trade era, from the date 
of the treaty of peace with England to the adoption of the Con- 
stitution (1783-89), to change their convictions. Free trade then 
existed, under the hard compulsion of circumstances. Tariffs 
were in the hands of the States. Where one imposed a duty 
the other admitted the article free. There was no uniform im- 
post law, and therefore practically none at all. The States, de- 
pleted by the war of the revolution, were the victims of unre- 
strained foreign trade competition. They had few factories, 
rolling mills and workshops, and but limited means of recupera- 
tion. Says Carey, " At the close of the Revolution the trade 
of America was free and unrestrained in the fullest sense of the 
word, according to the theory of Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, 
the Edinburg Reviewers, and the authors of the Encyclopaedia. 
Her ports were open, with scarcely any duties, to the vessels 
and merchandise of other nations." What befel ? As the States 
were discordant, foreign powers passed such laws as they pleased 
to destroy our commerce. Nearly every foreign nation shipped 
goods into the country and dumped them promiscuously on our 
wharves. The consequences followed which never fail to follow 
such a state of things. Competition on the part of our manu- 
facturers was at an end. They were bankrupted and beggared. 
The merchants whose importations had ruined them were in- 
volved in the calamity. Farmers, who had longed to buy foreign 
merchandise cheap, went down in the vortex of general destruc- 
tion. Said a statesman of the day, ** The people of America 
went to war to improve their condition and throw off the burden 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 685 

which the colonial system laid on their industry. And when 
their independence was attained they found it was a piece of 
parchment. The arm which had struck for it in the field was 
palsied in the workshop ; the industry which had been burdened 
in the colonies was crushed in the free States ; at the close of the 
Revolution the mechanics and manufacturers of the country 
found themselves, in the bitterness of their hearts, independent — 
and ruined. Carey further says : " The dreams of riches from 
excessive importations suddenly came to a close like those of 
1815. The nation had no mines to pay her debts. Industry, 
the only legitimate and permanent source of individual happi- 
ness and national wealth, power and resources, was destroyed as 
it has recently been by the influx, and finally by the depreciation 
of the price, of imported articles." Webster thus depicts the 
situation : *' From the close of the Revolution there came a 
period of depression and distress. . . . Ship-owners, ship-build- 
ers, mechanics, artisans, were destitute of employment and some 
of them of bread. The cheaper labor of England supplied the 
inhabitants of the Atlantic coast with everything. Ready-made 
clothes, among the rest, from the crown of the head to the soles 
of the feet, were for sale in every city. All these things came 
free from any general system of imposts." 

The entire mercantile community began to see that England 
and other foreign countries were about to control our external 
trade and internal industry. Every packet ship carried away 
thousands of dollars in money, till there was none at home to 
operate with. Our only products, those of the farm, were a 
drug, and husbandry was full of bitter disappointments. There 
would be a change. 

The change came. Pamphleteers arose without number. 
Newspapers took up the subject. Merchants, business men, 
farmers, statesmen, all united in the cry, " We have had enough 
of free trade. It means utter neglect of ourselves, and virtual 
sale of our energies and resources to older and better equipped 
nations. We have political independence : we must have indus- 
trial and commercial independence, else the victory of these 
nations over us will be greater than our recent victory over 



686 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

them." They saw what John Stuart Mill afterwards incorporated 
in his Principles of Political Economy: "What prevented the 
rapid recuperation of the United States, after the peace of 1783, 
was the system of free foreign trade, allowed to add its devasta- 
tions upon industry to those of the Revolution." Educated by 
a dreadful experience, it became clear to all parties that the 
power of industrial and commercial protection, so fatally absent 
from the Articles of Confederation, must repose somewhere. 
Of all thoughts which impelled toward a Constitution, this was 
the strongest. Says Bancroft, " Four causes, above others, ex- 
ercised a steady and commanding influence. The new republic,^ 
as one nation, must have pozver to regulate its foreign commerce ; 
to colonize its large domain ; to provide an adequate revenue \ 
to establish justice in domestic trade by prohibiting the separate 
States from impairing the obligation of contracts." 

END OF FREE TRADE.— Yvotn this time on till the Con- 
stitution became a fact, both political and business sentiment 
urged not only a stronger government, but one full of the paternal 
instinct, able and willing to defend and encourage home industry 
and all home interests. State responded to State in this behalf, 
and statesmen echoed the plaints and pleas of statesmen. A 
most assuring phase of the situation — one in strange contrast 
with that of to-day, considering the opportunities for information 
— was the unanimity of artificers, mechanic?, and workmen in 
demanding, through public meeting and published resolution, 
exemption from the degrading and ruinous competition forced 
upon them by the free and inordinate influx of foreign wares, on 
whose home manufacture they depended for a living. 

What was deemed sufficient for all the purposes of a new and 
more vigorous government found a place in the Constitution, 
Sec. VIII., clause I. " Congress shall have power to lay and 
collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and 
provide for the common defense and general welfare of the 
United States." At the same time, in order to insure the States 
against apprehension, and secure to them perfect interchange- 
ability of their goods, and free internal commerce, it was ordained 
that Congress should never have the power to levy "a tax or 
duty on articles exported from any State." 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. ggy 

NATURE OF THE NEW POWERS.— Thus endowed, the 
new government started on its career. The writers of the Fed- 
eralist saw enough in the above clauses to assure their country- 
men that the protection they required for their infant industries 
could now be guaranteed. As if by magic, the commercial and 
industrial situation began to change from one of gloom and de- 
pression to one of hope and activity. Says Bishop, " That the 
productive classes regarded the Constitution of 1787 as con- 
ferring the power and right of protection to the infant manufact- 
ures of the country is manifest from the jubilant feeling excited 
in various quarters upon the public ratification of that instru- 
ment." The first petition presented to the first Congress (March, 
1789) came from 700 mechanics, tradesmen and others, of Bal- 
timore, lamenting the decline of manufactures since the Revolu- 
tion, and praying that the efficient government with which they 
were then blessed, for the first time, would render the country 
" independent in fact, as well as in name," by early attention to 
the encouragement and protection of American manufactures and 
by imposing on "all foreign articles which could be made in 
America such duties as would give a decided preference to 
their labors." Fisher Ames said in his debate on the first tariff 
bill (1789), "The want of an efficient government to secure the 
manufacturing interests and advance our commerce was long 
seen by men of judgment, and pointed out by patriots solicitous 
to promote our general welfare." Rufus Choate said, in 1842, 
** A whole people, a whole generation of our fathers, had in view, 
as one grand end and purpose of our government, the acquisition 
of the means of restraining, by governmental action, the impor- 
tation of foreign manufactures, for the encouragement of manu- 
factures and labor at home, and desired and meant to do this by 
clothing the new government with this specific power of regulat- 
ing commerce." And Webster, in 1833, "The protection of 
American labor against injurious competition of foreign labor, 
so far, at least, as respects general handicraft productions, is 
known historically to have been one end designed to be obtained 
by establishing the Constitution." Says Tucker, in his History 
of the United States, " Merchants and ship-owners confidently 



^83 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

expected protection from the discriminating duties and naviga- 
tion laws of other countries ; the manufacturing class hoped for 
the encouragement of a protective impost; the agricultural class 
expected to share in the general prosperity." Leagues were 
formed in various cities for the purpose of urging on Congress 
an interpretation of the new powers conferred by the Constitution, 
in the interest of protective encouragement. Charleston ship- 
wrights followed the artisans of Baltimore with petitions to the 
first Congress. Similar petitions came in from Boston and New 
York. 

The history of an almost universal sentiment at this time 
shows that the constitutional clause relating to " duties and 
imposts," and to provision for the *' common defense and general 
welfare " had a well-understood meaning. There was no doubt 
about the power of the government to " raise revenue," and none 
about its right to frame a code of duties " for the regulation of 
commerce ; in other words, a tariff, protective or prohibitory, as 
the case might be." This was the English thought of the power 
as exercised at home, and it was the English phraseology when 
it wished to convey such power by statute. Hamilton so under- 
stood it: so did Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe. 
Gallatin, a pronounced free trader, said he found such to be the 
universal opinion of statesmen, on his entrance into public life. 
There was no such refinement as afterwards existed, and as is 
claimed by some, still exists, to the effect that the power to raise 
revenue by a tariff does not carry the power to protect manu- 
factures and general industries. 

TARIFF AND FREE TRADE LEGISLATION. — With 
this interpretation of the Constitution, and under existing circum- 
stances, the first Congress would have been a disappointing, if not 
recreant one, had it not come promptly to the rescue of the 
country with a tariff enactment. It was the first general bill 
passed by the first Congress (the first bill passed was one pre- 
scribing an oath of office), and reflected in its preamble the 
sentiment then prevalent : " Whereas it is necessary for the 
support of the government, for the discharge of the debts of the 
United States, and for the encouragement and protection of inanu- 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 689 

factures, that duties be laid on imported goods, wares and merchan- 
dise,.etcr Statesmen North and South gave their sanction to 
this comprehensive preamble. The bill invited debate of the 
widest range. It is notable that the learning brought to bear on 
its contents and merits has not been surpassed in future discus- 
sions of the same subject. It not only bore on all the economic 
phases of the question, but was exhaustive of the principle above 
alluded to, that the Constitution designed to secure to infant 
manufactures and struggling indu.stries of the country the very 
protection they needed, against the riper experience and cheaper 
labor of Europe. 

And as proof of the prevalence of the protective sentiment, we 
hear nothing from the opponents of this first bill in opposition to 
the necessity for protection, nor to the fact that tariff legislation 
of this kind was the best, if not the only known means, of 
fostering home industry. All opposition of moment was as to 
the method to be pursued. Such opposition came from those 
who were timid about too liberal a construction of the Consti- 
tution, and fearful that the States might thus early commit 
themselves to a policy which would rob them of their rights. A 
similar proof is furnished by the manufactures and industries 
deemed worthy of encouragement. They embraced the iron and 
steel of Pennsylvania, the glass of Maryland, the cotton, indigo 
and tobacco of the South, the wool, leather, paper and fisheries 
of the East. The act was, in addition to its revenue phases, a 
thoroughly protective measure, there being scarcely an article 
introduced into it whose freedom from foreign competition was 
not sought, and the desirability of whose home growth or pro- 
duction was not clear. It was imperative legislation in every 
sense, but especially so as tending to meet the English boast 
that while America had achieved political independence, it had 
been reconquered commercially, and was a more helpless and 
useful appendage in this sense than before. The act, there- 
fore, was a second declaration of independence, far more valua- 
ble to the government and people for the spirit it evinced and 
the possibilities it contained, than for the mild duties it im- 
posed. 

44 



690 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

This act was followed by Hamilton's report (1790) on com- 
merce and manufactures, which emphasized the principle of 
protective legislation, embodied all the learning and experience 
furnished by the respective nations touching the subject, more 
than ever committed the budding nation and universal party sen- 
timent to the operations of the act, and has ever since proved a 
well of information for students of political economy. As to the 
tendency of protection to foster monopoly, an argument much 
used in after years, he enunciated the principle which long prac- 
tice has proved to be correct, that internal competition would be 
found an effectual corrective of monopoly and would in the end 
give even a lower scale of prices for home manufactures than 
could prevail for foreign. 

His interpretation of the powers conferred on the government 
by the clause authorizing taxes, revenue, and the right to pro- 
vide for the common defence and general welfare, has never been 
excelled in perspicuity. All political parties have confidently 
reposed 'on it whenever they needed support for liberal construc- 
tion views, and it may now be said to prevail without regard to 
party lines. 

The act of 1789, and the report of 1790, were the beginning 
of historic and practical protection in the United States, which 
continued, with such ebb and flow as circumstances demanded 
or for the time being excused, up to 1828. There were many 
minor or amendatory tariff acts, most of which have been noted 
in the article *' Ruling Through Parties," whose object was to 
remodel existing acts without affecting the protective principle. 
These dot our entire tariff history and need not be referred to 
here. The first commanding act after that of 1789 was what is 
known as the " Tariff of 18 12." Madison had urged revision in 
his message. Calhoun, Lowndes, Clay and others sought, in 
such revision, their opportunity to formulate what afterwards be- 
came the "American System," and which erubraced, in substance, 
full protective power on the part of the government, with the 
additional thought that such power should no longer be exer- 
cised as secondary to the power to raise revenue. The act was 
a sweeping one, and raised the duties then existing quite one 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. ggj 

hundred per cent., while it fixed a discrimination of ten per cent, 
on goods imported in foreign vessels. 

Though this act, in conjuction with the further encouragement 
to infant industries occasioned by the diminution of imports dur- 
ing war times, gave an impetus to domestic manufactures they 
had never before experienced, the measure was regarded as too 
radical by the sections largely interested in shipping. The reac- 
tion which naturally followed resulted in the tariff of 1816, 
which was a wide departure from the rates of 1812, but which 
still retained many protective features. Mr. Webster, and in 
general statesmen from the East, regarded the higher rates as 
oppressive to the home-carrying trade. Clay and Calhoun in- 
sisted that this branch of industry should bide its time, with the 
certainty of greater activity and profit once our manufactures 
had had time to grow under the fostering care of the govern- 
ment. The time proved inopportune for such reduction of duties 
as the act brought. A financial crisis came. Industry of every 
kind lagged and dwindled. Blight and ruin came upon the 
country. 

A remedy was sought in the tariff act of 1824. Calhoun had 
deserted Clay and joined Webster, but his place was ably filled 
by Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. By this time a distinctive free 
trade thought was abroad, especially in the minds of those who 
represented the Southern planting interests and who, now that 
slave labor had come to be regarded as essential to cotton- 
raising, could not consistently foster the paid labor of the North. 
The result of the struggle, pending which President Monroe in- 
clined to the side of Protection and Internal Improvement, was 
a distinctive affirmation of what was now known as Clay's 
"American System." Duties were not restored to the high 
grade of 181 2, but the protective features of the bill were con- 
spicuous. 

Encouraged by their success and by the improved condition 
of the country under the operations of this act, its friends rallied 
to the support of the tariff of 1828, whose leading feature was a 
duty on wool and other raw materials, and therefore a more dis- 
tinct introduction of the protective idea than had yet occurred. 



G92 BUILDING AND RULING THE RErUBLIC. 

It has become historic as the turning-point of New England sen- 
timent respecting the protective system, Webster being found 
among the champions of the act ; and Hkewise as the beginning 
of that opposition on the part of the South which afterwards 
(1832) took the form of nulHfication. 

This act led to bitter political turmoil and to the expediency- 
act of 1832, which greatly scaled the duties of 1828, and of the 
intermediate act of 1830, but which was yet offensive to Cal- 
houn and the nullifying sentiment of the South, because it con- 
tained no repudiation of the protective policy. Clay's weakness 
for compromises culminated in the conciliatory act of 1833, 
which became known as the sliding scale tariff, because it pro- 
vided that there should be biennial reductions of the rates of 
1832, till at the end of ten years a uniform rate of twenty per 
cent, prevailed. This act was a practical abandonment of the 
protective principle. It was notice to the people and the world 
that the United States had departed from its early policy of 
fostering home industry and paternally caring for its internal 
development. Tariff was fully afloat on the sea of politics. 

The financial crash and industrial crush which came in 1837, 
united with the political revolution in 1840, which left the Whigs 
in the ascendant both as to the Presidency and the Congress, 
gave them an opportunity of again testing the merits of pro- 
tection, which, as a policy, found now an abiding-place in the 
bosom of their party only. True, they were helped by members 
of the opposition representing manufacturing sections, but they 
were also opposed by some of their members representing plant- 
ing sections. The act of 1842 was nevertheless a Whig measure, 
and was at first designed to be protective, but under the hostility 
of Tyler, who mercilessly used his veto, it was well-nigh shorn 
of its protective features and provided a schedule of rates lower 
than those of 1828. Such as it was, it sufficed to lift the cloud 
of depression which hung over the country and introduce an 
era of prosperity and cheerfulness not witnessed since 1832. 

So efficacious had this act proved that all parties took advan- 
tage of it during the election of 1844. Democrat and Whig 
were committed to it, and, if anything. Democratic pledges were 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. ^93 

the loudest and longest. But the South made a savage and 
persistent attack on it. Mr. Polk could not get away from his 
section and his friends therein. The Vice-President, Mr. Dallas, 
did not dare break with the administration of which he was a 
part, and which he hoped to succeed. The tariff of 1846 was 
on, and had drawn a tie vote in the Senate. It had been framed 
so as to introduce ad valorem for specific duties, and as a strictly 
revenue tariff without the incident of protection. It was there- 
fore free trade, as far as such a thing had gone as a party tenet. 
It was passed by the casting vote of Dallas, much to the chagrin 
of his Pennsylvania political friends, and in clear violation of the 
pledges of the campaign. 

While this action led to the Whig successes of 1848, the 
tariff legislation of 1846 escaped interference, a state of affairs 
which existed up till 1857, the close of Pierce's administration. 
Then under Democratic auspices the act of that year (March 3) 
was passed, which emphasized the free trade policy, and as the 
sequel proved, struck the country a cruel blow by reducing 
duties to the standards which prevailed before the war of 18 12, 
and had not been reached since, except at the end of the sliding 
scale of 1833. The one excuse for its passage, to wit, the 
redundancy of revenue, was speedily met by excessive importa- 
tions, a paralysis of industry, and an exhaustive outpour of the 
specie of the country. Six months after its passage the country 
was in the midst of such a panic as it had never witnessed. 
No branch of industry escaped. The ruin was universal and 
deep. 

What had been a paramount Whig doctrine now passed to 
the new Republican party. Judicious use of it in the campaign of 
i860 aided the political revolution of that year. It was a period 
of war and of liberal construction measures. The tariff of 186 1 
was natural to the party and the situation. It increased duties 
all along the line of imports, and reintroduced the protective 
principle which had prevailed during the first forty years of the 
government. This principle has remained undisturbed ever since 
so far as the forms of law could preserve it. It finds con- 
spicuous place in the subsequent amendatory acts, as well as the 



694 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

leading tariff acts of 1874 and 1883. Of this last it must be 
said, it was the result of a non-partisan commission appointed 
to inquire into existing acts with a view of correcting their incon- 
gruities, and readapting tariff rates to our newer and wider 
diversified industries. In obedience to a spirit of reform, and in 
accord with a sentiment against prohibitive rates, or even pro- 
tective rates as to established industries, it, after the fullest in- 
quiry, recommended measures which looked to a reduction of 
duties to the extent of twenty-five per cent., on some articles 
more, on some less. The act which was passed did not embrace 
all the recommendations of the commission, but its report was 
the basis of the bill. Enough time has not elapsed to test the 
exact amount of reduction to be effected by the act, but it will 
not reach the anticipated twenty-five per cent. Possibly this 
fact may have emboldened the efforts of the Democratic party in 
the present (Forty-eighth) Congress to accomplish the reduction 
contemplated in the Morrison bill, which seeks to make protec- 
tion an incident of revenue, and to reduce the rates of the act 
of 1883 a sheer twenty per cent., without regard to the age, 
character, or condition of the industry interested. This bill, 
which came to be known as the " Morrison horizontal reduction 
bill," did not command the united support of the party. Its 
title was stricken out, and it therefore fell, by the vote of some 
forty Democrats who united themselves to the opposing Repub- 
licans. 

FOR AND AGAINST.— The earliest anti-protection or free 
trade argument was as to the constitutional right to protect. 
This may be said to have passed away. " The second great free 
trade argument was that protection fostered monopoly. This 
was Calhoun's standing argument. He saw that it enured more to 
the benefit of free paid labor than to slave unpaid labor ; in other 
words, that its legitimate effect was encouragement of manu- 
facturing as against planting industries ; that is, the industries 
which involved invention, skill and competition, as against those 
which did not. He was right. But the thought of denouncing 
that as monopoly which concerns a whole people would be too 
idle for support to-day. The word and the argument are still 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 695 

heard, but as the last resort of those who do not understand 
their origin in tariff discussion, nor their logical effect under 
changed industrial conditions and attitudes. 

The free trade argument that protection tends to higher prices 
was met by Hamilton theoretically, and is now met by protec- 
tionists with indubitable evidence to the contrary. They are in 
general not without fact to vindicate themselves. They point to 
the fact that American manufactures of cotton which sold before 
the protective tariff of 1824 for 24 cents a yard were reduced 
under that tariff to 7^ cents. They point — we can only give a 
few out of many instances — to the fact that under protection out' 
cotton textiles are found in the best Oriental and South American 
markets, and that England has to resort to an adulteration of 
similar manufactures in order to compete with us in price. They 
point to the fact that under protection we have acquired a per- 
fection in the manufacture of edge tools and agricultural imple- 
ments which enables us to compete with the English home 
market They point to the fact that so long as England sup- 
plied us with, and had a monopoly of, Bessemer steel rails, the 
price in gold was ;^I50 per ton, and that since this manufacture 
has assumed its present proportions in this country under pro- 
tection, the price has fallen to ;^40, to say nothing of our home 
development, industrial independence, and the disbursement of 
countless millions to American laborers. 

All this is actual. They argue the same as to relative cost. 
In the early days protection advanced prices, because industries 
were not sufficiently numerous to invite the wholesome com- 
petition which now prevails. But if prices advanced, so did 
labor, so that there was money to buy necessaries. During the 
low prices under the tariff of 1833, and during the panic of 
1837, labor was stricken, and lay crushed with the general wreck. 
When prices revived under the tariff of 1842, so did the price 
of labor, and so it declined with the decline of prices in 1857. 
The point is that cheapness or dearness is relative. That well- 
paid labor can purchase more in a market where prices are 
raised by tariff duties than underpaid labor, because the 
necessaries of life are as a rule exempt from duty. That labor 



696 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

cannot be well remunerated when our markets are cheapened by 
foreign competition, and when the capital which should be in- 
vested at home is drawn off to pay for imported articles. 

The abstract argument in favor of free trade is, that trading ,is 
a natural right — the world a market. That some countries can, 
by natural fitness, certainly and always produce a class of goods 
cheaper than others, and that it is wrong to prevent, by legisla- 
tion, their general sale and a general opportunity to take advan- 
tage of their cheapness. To this the protectionist replies that 
he fully recognizes this law of trade, and is willing to see it 
operate just so far as the goods or articles in question do not 
compete with similar articles, or the possibility of the production 
of similar articles, in his own country. That as to tea, coffee 
and such things as cannot be produced here, they are, and ought 
to be, free of duty, unless forsooth simple revenue requires such 
duty ; but that as to the products of other nations, whose cheap- 
ness has been brought about by the long practice of hard pro- 
tective systems, or by social and political degradation of the labor 
which enters into them, it becomes the highest duty of the gov- 
ernment to avoid competition with them, that our own labor may 
live and our own capital find employment. -The protectionist 
admits that this is selfish, but claims that it is the selfishness 
which all peoples have to exercise in order to exist, and further 
that it is the selfishness of the law which subordinates the rights 
of the few to the rights of the many, or the rights of enemies to 
those of friends. 

To the argument that other countries practice free trade, the 
answer is that free trade is not known among nations except in 
theory. That the modern drift of economic practice is against it. 
That England, who has set up to convert the world to free trade, 
is not herself a free trade nation, but by means of a tariff on 
wines, spirits, tobacco, and other articles she calls luxuries, 
gathers a revenue sufficient for her wants. That in the past 
twenty years, and long after she declared free trade to be the 
rule as to her manufactures, she protected her commercial 
marine by the payment of direct subsidies, till France, Italy and 
Germany were compelled to do the same, and this country has 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. g97 

been made to see the folly of not doing it, by the loss of her 
carrying trade. 

The free trader claims that while some articles are cheaper by 
reason of our ability to manufacture them, the greater number 
are not, and cannot be. The protectionist says this is not abso- 
lutely desirable at present. That it ought to be a patriotic pride 
with an American to pay more for a home-made article than for 
a foreign one, the quality and utility being the same. That he 
will be more than repaid for the difference by the fact that he 
has thereby encouraged a home industry and contributed to a 
home market. That every cent which thus goes out of a man's 
pocket is a contribution to the comfort of his surroundings, to 
the happiness of his neighbors, to the erection of homes, to the 
welfare of labor, to the building up of a home market for cattle, 
wool, wheat, corn, butter, cheese, etc., for which there would not 
otherwise be a demand, or, if so, one so remote and foreign as to 
rob him of all profit by the cost of transportation, not to say the 
cost of intermediate agency. 

A school of free traders who are really protectionists, and of 
protectionists who are really free traders, have pretty nearly 
agreed that the true measure of protection is found in the differ- 
ence between the cost of an article at home and abroad. They 
say that this cost represents labor, and this difference the differ- 
ence in the price of labor, and that when this difference is covered 
American labor has all the protection it can ask or ought to 
have. The straight-out protectionist says this is illusory. It 
leaves capital out of the question, which is even more timid than 
labor. It further compels an adjustment which is impracticable, 
for the reason that labor is differently paid in all older countries, 
and because the political and social institutions of those countries 
are different. Where caste prevails, the laborer has no induce- 
ment to rise above his station, and is content to take his stipu- 
lated wage, however low it may be. But here he is a man, a 
voter, has every encouragement to rise himself and see his chil- 
dren rise. He has, or may have, social caste, which he is in 
duty bound to sustain. That therefore labor conditions are not 
the same, and any argument based on simple differences of labor 



^98 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

prices is unfair. Our standards ought not to be based on those 
abroad, but should be subject to the laws of supply and demand 
at home. Hamilton's idea of protection was that it did not, and 
should not, invite competition of any kind from abroad, but that 
it depended for its equity and success on the competition it 
created at home. This was his answer to all argument that it 
favored monopoly, and it was equally an answer to the argument 
that either our labor or capital should be subject to foreign 
standards, or be gauged by foreign rules or conditions. The 
free trade argument that protection tends to overproduction in 
the United States, and to periods of depression and panic, is 
answered by square denial. England is as subject to periodic 
visitations of glut and depression as this or any other protective 
country. The facts are on the side of the protectionist. The 
year 1884 is a period of depression in the iron trade. With 
those who look no further, the cry of overproduction by reason 
of too much protection answers for argument. But every iron- 
producing country in the world is now subject to the same de- 
pression, let the reason for it be what it may. And the English 
iron trade is as much, if not more, depressed than all. The 
logic of the free trade situation requires that she should be 
exempt. And just here the protectionist uses with most vigor 
the historic arguments at hand. He points to the fact that the 
repeal of protective laws has inevitably resulted in depression 
and disaster, and that a return to them has eventuated in renewed 
prosperity and confidence. This is certainly true of the periods 
designated by 1819-24, 1837-42, 1857-61. 

The panic of 1873 is the only historic exception, and this was 
due not to those legitimate and sober relations between capital 
and labor which protective or free trade legislation is supposed 
to effect, but to speculative ramifications incident to a redundant 
currency, the direction of wild, unsettled, post-war energies into 
new and unknown channels, and the sudden recall, by the 
Chicago and Boston fires, of ;^ 2 5 0,000,000 of capital to other and 
imperative uses. How long protection postponed the panic, no 
free trader has agreed to tell. Nor has any one condescended 
to inform the world how much of the speedy and substantial re- 



PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 699 

covery from its ruinous effects was due to the presence of a 
liberal protective system. 

But as to this panic, these things are purely local. The laws 
•of economy do not permit simply a home search for cause? 
which were pervasive of the commercial world. The panics of 
1 8 19, 1837 and 1857 were confined to this country. That of 
1873 was general, and far more disastrous in Europe than here. 
Twelve hundred millions of our bonds were held abroad. 
Stringency there caused a refusal of further credit. The seeds 
of contagious panic were sown broadcast. It was a matter of 
credit and not of industry. Indeed, our mills did not stop at 
all, or as in other panics. Banks did not break so numerously. 
Internal commerce was sustained. All recuperative forces had 
play, and the rescue was prompt. We even got rid of hamper- 
ing foreign debt. Economy became a rule. We sold more 
than we bought because we did not, owing to high tariff rates, 
become a dumping ground for foreign manufactures, as after the 
Revolution and the war of 181 2. Many have said the panic of 
1873 was a blessing. 

As to the American farmer, the free trader is content with the 
argument that he ought not to be made to pay high prices for the 
commodities he uses. The protectionist points to the fact that 
all manufactured commodities are on an average twenty-five per 
cent, cheaper than before 1 860, and that then some eighty per 
cent, of them were made abroad and twenty per cent, at home, 
while now eighty per cent, are made at home and twenty per 
cent, abroad. Even if prices for these manufactures were the 
same, the farmer has gained by protection the advantage of a 
home market for his produce, that is, a saving to the extent at 
least of the cost of transporting it to markets three to five 
thousand miles away. Transportation is always dead loss. Our 
home market is the one the farmer should foster. It is certain, is 
at his door, is growing as fast as our own manufactures, is already 
large enough to consume eighty per cent, of our wheat and 
ninety-two per cent, of our corn, and even as to our surplus is 
being fast forestalled by the English design to get cheap food 
for her workmen through Australian and East Indian wheat. 



700 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

It is impossible to follow the many minor arguments used by 
free traders and protectionists. Nor is it necessary. Many of 
them are individual, many shaded to suit party bent, many 
demagogic. It is equally impossible to go through the hard chap- 
ters of political economy, written to prove the absolute rectitude 
of either free trade or protection. Whatever may be said of 
them as abstract questions, nations are relative. They exist and 
prosper by their relations. Independence and prosperity are de- 
sirable. This country had to face the problem of political inde- 
pendence. Peace was beautiful and desirable, but peace meant 
humiliation, subserviency. The protective agency of horrid war 
had to be evoked. Political independence was the beginning of 
a grand commercial and industrial battle. We have learned to 
trust the agency of protection to win this victory also. It is the 
old question, in another form, of peace and subordinancy, or legal, 
industrial war and second independence. The weapons of Great 
Britain alone are countless millions of capital and machinery 
equal to the labor of seven hundred millions of men. We must 
meet this mighty menace, or suffer overthrow. To exist indus- 
trially we must earn the right to exist. Eternal vigilance is the 
price of our industrial liberty. If overcome in the struggle, let 
it not be said of us that we were too spiritless or too fond of 
dreams to try the arts of protection which have raised other 
nations to opulence and commercial independence. 




THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 

^N the fall of 1882 the Republican party of Pennsylvania 
introduced into its platform a proposition which read as 
follows : " That any surplus in the public treasury aris- 
ing from a redundant revenue should, after paying the 
national debt as fast as its conditions permit, be dis- 
tributed from time to time to the several States upon the basis 
of population, to relieve them from the burden of local taxation 
and provide means for the education of their people." It became 
known as the Barker plank, from the name of the gentleman who 
suggested it. At first it attracted but little attention, but as 
time passed it drew comment and discussion, and at last grew to 
be a matter of far-reaching and national moment. 

HISTORY. — It was not a new proposition or doctrine, as 
many supposed, but was nearly as old as the government, and 
had at various times engaged the attention of statesmen and 
parties. Jefferson, in one of his inaugurals, spoke of the neces- 
sity of providing a plan for the distribution of the proceeds of 
the sales of public lands among the States, it then being a 
doctrine that such proceeds belonged to the States which were 
the real owners of the lands. 

Afterwards, in the second session of the Nineteenth Congress 
(1827), a bill was defeated which had for its object the distribu- 
tion of a part of the national revenue among the States. In this 
Congress the National Republican aind Democratic parties were 
very evenly divided, and this measure shared the fate of an 
amended tariff bill which was strongly urged by the National 
Republican (afterwards the Whig) party. 

President Jackson, with greater reason than had previously 
existed, for the national debt was then growing small, proposed, 

(701) 



702 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

in his message to the Twenty^first Congress, Dec. 7, 1829, a dis- 
tribution of the surplus revenue among the States, the thought 
still being that the States were entitled to it as owners of the 
public lands, the sale of which constituted a leading source of 
income. The President's suggestion led to the famous Foot re- 
solution of inquiry into the sales of the public lands, and to the 
proposition to stop surveys and limit their sale for a time, debate 
on which engaged almost the entire sessk>n of the Senate and 
culminated in the splendid oratorical contest between Webster 
and Hayne. 

On account of the approaching extinguishment of the public 
debt, President Jackson, in his message to the Twenty-fourth 
Congress, Dec. 7, 1835, again called attention to the necessity of 
devising some means of distributing the surplus revenue among 
the States. The matter being timely, it drew many propositions^ 
each of which was suggestive of the numerous constitutional 
difficulties in the way. A direct return of surplus moneys to 
the States, and the further collection of the same for the pur- 
pose of so returning them, were regarded as out of the question. 
The plan was hit upon of loaning to the States, in proportion to 
their population, such part of the surplus as they thus became 
entitled to. The act passed, June 23, 1836, to take effect Jan. 
I, 1837. It authorized the deposit of all surplus for that year, 
except ;^5, 000,000, in what were then known as the " pet banks," 
or designated government depositories, the same to be drawn 
out by each State to the extent of what was due it, and to be 
regarded as a loan for whose payment the State stood as security. 
There was an actual distribution to the extent of ;^26, 101,644. 
The quota due each State for the year 1837 was ascertained, and 
three quarterly payments were made on Jan. i, April i and July 
I. Owing to the panic of that year, which forced the act of 
Oct. 2, 1837, postponing further payment till Jan. i, 1839, the 
fourth instalment was never paid. To illustrate, the quota ascer- 
tained to be due Pennsylvania was ;^3, 823, 35 3.04, and of this she 
received three instalments of ;^955,838.26 each, or a total of 
^2,867,514.78. The quota of Virginia was ;^2,93 1,236, and of 
this she received three instalments of ;^732,8o9 each, or a total 
of ;^2, 198,427. 



THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 703 

The act had an excuse for its existence in the fact that there 
was no debt of any account and a surplus revenue, which, unless 
distributed, the treasury would have had to hoard. It was based 
on the then prevailing theory that the States were entitled to it 
as owners of the public lands, whence most of this revenue came. 
But probably the passage of the act was due as much to a desire 
on the part of certain presidential aspirants to stand well with 
the States as to anything else. The Foot inquiry of former 
years had shown that the policy of stopping surveys and sales 
of public lands for a time was very unpopular. These going on, 
the question of distribution kept at the front. 

Further, the act imposed no restrictions on the States. They « 
could use the money as they pleased. Indeed the very nature 
of the distribution — it was a loan and not an absolute gift, though 
it was understood that payment would never be demanded — 
prevented such restriction. What the States did with it is not 
certain at this date. It is said that in Maine and New Hamp- 
shire it was distributed among the people amid infinite jest ; that 
New York set it apart as a school fund ; that North Carolina 
put it into internal improvements ; that Pennsylvania divided 
hers into a school fund and a fund for internal improvement. As 
to the rest of the twenty-six States which participated the im- 
pression is that it was frittered away without permanent good 
results. 

After the panic of 1837 and the era of low tariffs which began 
with the sliding scale of 1833, not to end till 1861, the country 
was in no condition to moot the question of a distribution of a 
surplus. Yet it unfortunately came up in 1842. The Whigs 
were then striving to pass the protective tariff act of that year. 
They did so after a long debate, and in order to calm apprehen- 
sion respecting a redundant revenue from it they coupled with it 
a clause providing for the distribution of any surplus that might 
arise among the States. The bill fell under Tyler's veto. A 
second was passed without protective features. This was also 
vetoed. A third without either the protective or the surplus 
distribution feature was passed and signed. This became the 
celebrated Tariff Act of 1842. 



704 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

After that the act of 1836 passed quite out of mind, and the 
theory of distribution with it, if we except the recent demands 
made by Arkansas and Virginia upon the treasury for payment of 
the fourth instalments which they claimed to be due them. The 
Virginia case took the shape of a mandamus to compel the 
Secretary of the Treasury to pay her the sum of ^732,809, the 
same being the fourth instalment of public money which the 
Secretary of the Treasury was directed to deposit for the benefit 
of the State by act of Congress dated June 23, 1836. The 
Supreme Court of the United States, March 17, 1884, dismissed 
the mandamus, saying " that the act in question created no debt 
^ or legal obligation on the part of the United States to the States 
accepting its terms, but only made provision for the deposit 
temporarily with the States, subject to recall by the government, 
of a portion of the surplus national revenue." Further: "The 
act authorized the deposits to be made out of surplus in the 
treasury, on January I, 1837. The act of October 2, 1837, 
postponed the fourth instalment till January I, 1839. The con- 
dition of the treasury was then such as to forbid its payment 
or deposit. Congress did not make it a charge on revenue in 
the treasury after January i, 1839, and the Secretary of the 
Treasury has no power to apply subsequently collected revenue 
to the payment of said fourth instalment without an act of 
Congress." 

' It thus appears that distribution of the surplus revenue is no 
new question, but one which has plagued the Government and 
parties throughout the century. 

PRESENT QUESTION.— ThQ present question of surplus 
distribution comes up at a time when there is really no surplus 
revenue. The country is in debt to the extent of nearly ;^ 1,5 00,- 
ocx),ooo. Rigid economists say "let all revenue be devoted to 
the payment of the debt, then talk about distribution." This is 
almost the position taken by the Secretary of the Treasury in 
his last report, December, 1883. His words are : " It is perhaps 
enough for the present that the payable debts of the Union can 
take up all surplus now existing or likely to arise for four years 
to come." 



THE SURPLUS REVENUE. ' 705 

The President in his message to Congress, December, 1883, 
advises a diminution of the excise taxes if the surplus appears 
too large ; yet, the same having been reduced to the extent of 
;^50,000,000 in 1883, and the Tariff rates having been consider- 
ably cut, he thinks that the full effect of these laws should be 
witnessed before making haste to reduce the surplus further. 

Observe both of these functionaries speak of a surplus revenue. 
They do not mean that there is an actual surplus as in 1836; 
that is, one over and above absolute needs; but only one above 
present or current wants. There is more than enough to pay 
the expenses of running the Government, the interest on the 
debt, and such part of the principal as may be falling due, or as 
ought to be met in order to keep up steady reduction. If the 
thought is entertained that all surplus should go to the 
extinguishment of the debt, then no question can arise as to the 
distribution of the surplus among the States. If, on the con- 
trary, the thought be conspicuous — and it surely is— that we 
ought not to pay the debt so rapidly, then the question of 
making some disposition of the surplus forces itself to the front, 
for nothing is better established than the doctrine that a govern- 
ment ought not to collect money from the people for the mere 
pleasure of the thing and for the purpose of piling it up idly in 
the vaults of the Treasury. 

The present question of surplus distribution is therefore com- 
plex. It depends on our ideas respecting the propriety of rapid 
or slow payment of the National debt. And rapid or slow pay- 
ment of the debt is in itself a great question. Rapid payment 
means a continuance of high excise taxes and high rates of duty 
on imports. It means constant calling in of bonds, which holders 
would rather retain than give up. It means the speedy and final 
extinguishment of the bonds which the National Banks are 
compelled to buy and hold as a basis of the banking system, and 
it consequently means the end of that system, or its reorganiza- 
tion on some other and less satisfactory basis. In its most 
favorable light, it means of course the early stoppage of interest 
on the debt and thereby an immense annual saving. 

Slow payment means a lower tax and tariff rate, a spreading 
45 



706 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of the burdens over the future, a longer continuance of the 
National Banking system, enjoyment of our securities by holders, 
and annual loss in the shape of interest. But in view of the 
fact that our bonds have to be met at stated times as they fall 
due, there is no school of economists which advocates a reduc- 
tion of our National income to the low standard of mere current 
or every-day wants. All agree that we should pay our way 
and be making ready for future demands ; in other words, that 
however much taxation may be reduced, the Government should 
not be pinched, but should have a handsome margin each year ; 
that is, a surplus. 

Selfish rather than strictly economical considerations come in 
to complicate the question. Those interested in liquors and 
tobacco, the two articles which now bear the brunt of excise 
taxation, naturally want them relieved of tax. They point to 
the dangers of a surplus revenue, and answer the question of 
distribution by saying, *' Strike off the tax and thus do away with 
the surplus." Again, those interested in maintaining a high pro- 
tective tariff see great danger in a large surplus. Some would 
have it applied directly to the payment of the debt, so that an 
inducement to lower tariff rates and income from duties might 
not arise, for the present at least. Others fall in with the liquor 
and tobacco interests, and advocate abolition of all excise taxes 
and internal revenue, on the theory that if this source of income 
is cut off, the government will be compelled to maintain a high 
standard of duties on imports. Still others are ardent advocates 
of the present rates of tax and duty, and as to the surplus that 
is arising and sure to arise, they say, " Let it be distributed among 
the States, and to some good end." 

One other thought in connection with the present question of 
surplus distribution, before we turn to its history. The surplus 
under consideration is that which arises from all sources. It is 
general and mixed. The early attempts at distribution among 
the States, and the successful one of 1836, touched a special, 
unmixed surplus — that arising from the sale of public lands. It 
was not a surplus occasioned by taxation, nor was the distribution 
regarded as anything more than a return of moneys to the proper 



THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 707 

owners, State supremacy and right to the public domain being 
then a prominent political doctrine. There is now no proposition 
— except as a means of avoiding Constitutional objections, or of 
reconciling the idea of distribution to the popular mind — to sep- 
arate the surplus, and to distribute to the States the part which 
arises from the sale of public lands, or from any special source. 
The distribution is not to be made because the States have any 
paramount right to the surplus moneys, but because the govern- 
ment chooses to be generous and to rpstore to the people, as 
nearly as it can, the sums it has collected from them. This is 
the proposition of distribution coldly stated. But it has taken 
quite another form under discussion, as we shall see. 

We now turn to the growth or amplification of the surplus dis- 
tribution idea. As embodied in the Pennsylvania platform, it 
meant a distribution of not needed surplus among the States in 
proportion to their population, and for the purpose of relieving 
them " from the burden of local taxation and providing means 
for the education of their people." There was no mention of 
the source whence the surplus sprang. The distribution was to 
be general, and on the basis of population. It was to be con- 
stant as long as a surplus arose, great or small in proportion to 
the extent of that surplus. The recipient States were to be 
limited in their use of the money. They were to pay local debts 
with it and provide means for the education of their people. 

A year afterwards, Nov. 22, 1883, the question came promi- 
nently before the public through a letter from Hon. James G. 
Blaine, published in the Philadelphia Press. He objected to the 
Pennsylvania plan because it proposed to give no steady or cer- 
tain amount to the States each year. They would be the recipi- 
ents of a large amount this year and a small amount next, just 
as the surplus fluctuated in the Treasury. The States could not, 
therefore, depend on it to support any plan for reducing their 
debts or building up educational systems. They would fritter 
it away as they did the deposits of 1837. He objected further 
that it placed a temptation before representatives from impecu- 
nious States to withhold their support from National and legit- 
imate appropriations in order to make those for their States as 



708 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

large as possible. His third objection was to the assumption 
contained in the proposition that our present redundancy of rev- 
enue would continue for some time. But owing to the fact, or 
combination of facts, that our securities were in such shape that 
payn!ent of much of the debt could well be postponed, and that 
there was hardly a possibility of so reducing taxes and duties as 
to avoid a surplus income, he regarded it as a fit time to help the 
States to lift their debts and lower their rates of taxation. Then, 
on the theory that the Federal government could alone tax 
spirits with any degree of success, that it was the easiest and 
handiest taxation known, being on a luxury, and that it was far 
less oppressive and hurtful than any local tax on land or per- 
sonal property, he proposed to turn over to the States each year 
the amount raised by the government on liquors, with the intent 
that they should reduce their own taxes in proportion to the 
amount received. The amount raised in 1883 from tax on 
liquors was ;^86,0C)0,000, which, in the hands of the States, would 
enable them to reduce their local taxation that much. Thus, he 
argued, the States would have a certain income, one arising from 
a specific tax on specific articles, and they could afford to engage 
in plans for lowering tax£s without fear of confusion. 

While, this plan went back to that of 1836, and involved the 
distribution of a special, or specifically derived, surplus, and may 
have, in' the mind of its author, thereby overcome a Constitu- 
tional objection, it was narrower than the Pennsylvania plan, 
which proposed that the recipient States should not only lower 
their taxes, but educate their people, through and by means of 
the government's bounty. It further created a surplus for dis- 
tribution, and made it certain for each year, a thing not contem- 
plated in the Pennsylvania proposition, for it assumed to deal 
only with such surplus as seemed probable, unless there came 
about a reduction of both excise taxes and tariff rates. 

This reopening of the question drew a variety of opinions 
from all sources, and proved the beginning of a discussion which 
has since become general, and in some instances taken on party 
hues. Both the plans of distribution were compelled to face the 
Constitutional argument that the government had no right to 



THE SURPLUS REVENUE, 709 

raise money by taxation for the purpose of handing it over to the 
States that they might thereby hghten the burden of State taxa- 
tion. And this has all along been the most serious argument 
against any proposition to distribute national surplus. It is 
certainly stronger against creating a surplus, or setting apart 
specifically derived income, for the use of the States, than 
against such disposition of an accidental surplus found in the 
Treasury, especially if the latter goes to the States for educa- 
tional purposes, or partly so. In the end it may prove a fatal 
objection. 

Another objection was to the effect that the distribution of 
moneys arising from the taxation of malt and spirituous liquors 
would be enriching States which did not manufacture such 
liquors at the expense of those which did. This lost its weight 
by the consideration that the consumers, in the end, paid the 
tax, and such consumers were found in every State. Again it 
v»'as said that if the States were thus supported, the people would 
lose their interest in local affairs ; that it looked to the perpetua- 
tion of internal revenue taxation at a time when public senti- 
ment favored its abolition ; that it would encourage profligacy 
in the States ; would be generally unwise and mischievous. 

The friends of distribution relied on historic precedent, on a 
popular sentiment which could not be induced to relieve liquors 
from taxation so long as lands and articles of necessity were 
subject to it, on the ability of the government to collect such 
tax with the machinery already in existence, on the fairness of a 
distribution according to population, on the immense advantage 
likely to accrue to the States. 

When the matter began to assume practical shape, which it 
did in a bill drawn by Mr. Barker, author of the Pennsylvania 
plan, it was seen that many of the objections above urged were 
insuperable. There was a general departure from the thought 
that the government ought to raise revenue for the purpose of 
distributing it. Indeed, it appeared that if the government were 
to assume any such generous attitude toward the States, it must 
have a higher justification than had thus far cropped out. That 
part of the Pennsylvania plan which referred to a distribution 



I 



710 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

for educational purposes now became conspicuous. States had 
founded educational systems and endowed them liberally, on 
the theory that they owed an obligation to the citizen — the 
obligation of redeeming him from illiteracy. Did not a similar 
obligation exist on the part of the Federal government? 

This question had been asked many times during the existence 
of our government, and in general answered affirmatively. If 
such obligation existed at all, it did so now to an extent greater 
than ever. Illiteracy was everywhere. In some sections half 
the people were illiterates. Those sections were not the richest, 
nor best qualified to embark in liberal schemes of education. 
What so easy and proper as for the government to extend edu- 
cational aid ? There was a surplus of revenue, and distribution 
of it for such purpose would be in the nature of a parental 
patronage. Constitutional objections would be avoided. The 
government would be a benefactor. Public moneys would not 
go out to the States as such, and in proportion to population, 
but to the States as localities where illiteracy was prevalent and 
in proportion to the number of illiterates. Help would go 
where it was needed, light into dark places, both as a demand 
existed. 

In looking back, precedent was found to be abundant. The 
ordinance (1785) for the government of the Northwest Territory 
set apart the sixteenth section (640 acres) of every township for 
common school purposes, and wisely declared that " religion, 
morality and knowledge being necessary to good government 
and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa- 
tion shall be ever encouraged." Fourteen of the States received 
school lands under this ordinance. The ordinance of 1787 in- 
creased the gift of school lands to two townships of land to each 
State for the purpose of founding a university. This ordinance 
was confirmed after the adoption of the Constitution, and every 
State organized since 1 800 has enjoyed this gift of 46,000 acres. 
Those States which handled their deposit, under the act of 1836, 
in the wisest manner made a school fund of it. Many acts, run- 
ning from 1 841 to i860, gave large grants of lands to the States, 
much of which was wasted, but some of which was turned t& 



THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 711 

the account of public schools. Up to this time the government 
gave to the States lands estimated at 140,000,000 acres, most of 
which, it is safe to say, has been converted to public school uses. 
In 1862 a further grant was made to each State of 30,000 for 
each Senator and Representative in Congress, the proceeds of 
the same to be devoted to the founding and maintenance of agri- 
cultural colleges. 

It is thus made apparent that something very like a policy 
has existed from a time beyond the Constitution to extend 
national aid to education. True, only public lands were given 
away, but that does not alter the principle. The treasury was 
deprived of their proceeds. The proceeds themselves might as 
well have been given — perhaps better. 

At this juncture the question of distributing surplus revenue 
among the States was merged in that of extending national aid 
to education. It came into the Senate in December, 1883, in 
the shape of the Blair bill, and was at first coldly received by both 
political parties. But as discussion advanced, its merits became 
clear, and it finally passed that body. Its success in the House 
is a matter of the future. It appropriates ;^77,ooo,ooo, to be 
dealt out to the States during a period of eight years, in propor- 
tion to the number of illiterates in each. But no State shall 
receive more than it expends itself for public schools, nor shall 
any State receive its instalment till the governor thereof files an 
annual statement showing the school attendance and expen- 
diture for the same. While it disposes of all probable or 
troublesome surplus revenue for eight years at least, it does so 
with a distinctive aim, and under conditions which make it 
obligatory on the States to devote it to education. Certainly 
surplus moneys could not go out of the treasury in a worthier 
direction. The government control of the funds appropriated 
is not lost till a guarantee is given that they are being devoted 
to the uses designed. 

The objections to the bill may be grouped under three heads : 
(i) Those as to its constitutionality. (2) Those to the effect that 
it was virtually legislating in favor of a section, it being known 
that the Southern States would receive the bulk of the moneys 



712 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

appropriated because the per cent, of illiteracy was largest there. 
(3) Those (chiefly from Southern Senators) to the effect that it 
showed a want of confidence in the ability of the States to 
handle the question of education, and would tend to weaken 
local pride in common schools and local exertion for their sup- 
port. 

The bill rests on the fact of illiteracy, which is indisputable. 
It further rests on the theory that illiteracy is an element of 
danger to the republic, which it is a duty to remove. It simply 
extends the facts and theories which are the basis of common 
school systems in the States to the national government, and 
gives them play there amid greater opportunities for good. 
Whatever may be the fate of the bill in the House, it is certain 
that the Senate's action has brought before the country a far- 
reaching and important question — one which, while it involves 
that of surplus distribution and in a measure settles it, will prove 
pregnant with good or evil, just as statesmen rise or fall with a 
grave situation. 



INDEX 



A. PAGE 

Abolition of Slavery 578 

Adams', John, Administration 453 

" John Q., Administration 497 

" Samuel 78 

Administrations and Congresses 430 

Admiralty, Courts 258 

Admission, see the States. 

Agricultural Department 250 

Agriculture, history of. 137 

" see the States. 

Alabama, admission of 115 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 261-64 

Alaska, acquisition 127 

" cession 96 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 264 

Alien and Sedition laws 456 

Allen, Ethan 108 

Amendment Eleven 448 

Amendments to Constitution 438 

American outlook 68 

" association 80 

party 77, 535 

"American Idea" 478, 490 

Ames, Nathaniel 105 

Anti-Federals 434 

" Masonic party 505, 510 

" Slavery party 519 

Apportionment acts 196 

Areas of territory 96 

Areas, see the States. 

Arbuthnot and Ambrister 488 

Arizona Territory 127 

" population, resources, government 

an*d politics. 265-67 

Arkansas, admission of. ; 117 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 267-70 

Army, American 81 

Army, U. S 230 

Articles of Confederation 87 

" their nature 99-100 

Athens, assembly of. 12 

Attorney-General and duties 249 

Attorneys-General, all 250 

Austria, population and square miles 132 

B. 

Babcock 604 

Baltimore, Lord 37 

Barnum, J. B 471 

Beetroot sugar 145 

Barley, areas and crops 141 

Barre's speech 73 

Belknap 604 

Berkley brathers 51 



PAGE 

Bill of Rights 80 

Birney, James G 531 

Blackstone's views 11 

Blaine, James G 592 

Bland dollar bill 613 

Blending of peoples 137 

Border Ruffians 555 

Boyd, Linn 547 

Boynton on government 12 

Brother Jonathan 99 

Brownson on Sovereignty 17 

Building geographically 24 

" industrially 129 

" politically 97 

Buchanan's Administration 557 

Buckwheat, areas and crops 142 

Burr bubble and trial 470 

Butler 567 

Butter 151 

C. 

Cabinet 205 

Cabinets, j^^ Administrations and Congresses. 

Cabots, discoveries by 26 

California, admission of. ..120, 545 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 271-74 

Calhoun on Slavery 539 

Calhoun's new doctrine 544 

Calvert, George and Cecil 37 

Campaign School '. 21 

Canals 180 

Carpet-bag governments 593 

Capital, to Washington 461 

Carolina Constitution 52 

Carpenters' Hall 78 

Cartaret, Sir George 52, 56 

Census Office 243 

Cereal crops in full 142 

Chapiplain 65 

Charge d'Affaires 209 

Charles 11., freaks of. 49 

Charter, first colonial 30 

Charter of Liberties 58 

Chase, impeachment of 467 

Cheese 151 

Cherokee Indians v 507 

Chinese Bill 621 

Chinese Empii-e, population and square miles. 132 

Churches 187 

Circuit Courts 253 

Citizen and State 20 

Civil Rights Bill 585, 605 

" Service Bill 622 

" Service Reform 624 

Clay and Calhoun 476 

Climate of U. S 130 

(713) 



714 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Coal i68 

Coast Survey 217 

Coligny and the Huguenots 29 

Colony to State 97 

Colorado, admission of. 123 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 275-78 

Colored population 137 

Commerce, history of. 173 

" foreign and domestic 174 

" growth and value 175 

" articles of. 176 

" in 1812 476 

Commonwealth 14 

Compromise of 1820 490 

" 1850 544 

Comptroller 216 

Confederate government 573 

Confederation, articles of 87, 97 

" what it did and did not 99 

Congress, First Colonial 72 

" " Continental 78 

" Delegates to 79 

" Meeting of. 192 

" Second 81 

" and Union 79 

" Sessions of. 192 

Congressmen, Salaries of. 195 

Congresses, history of each 436-623 

Connecticut Colony 47 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 278-81 

Constitution, dawn of. 100 

" convention loi 

" convention members loi 

" ratification 102, 105 

" Signing of. 434 

Constitutions of States 86 

Consular Service.... 210 

Contested Election, 1800 461 

Continental Congress 86, 97 

Convention and caucus 460 

Convention of the Constitution loi 

Conventions, see Administrations and Con- 
gresses. 

Copper 167 

Cooper, Ashley 52 

Cotton, history of. 146 

" areas and crops 147 

" consumption 148 

" manufactures 160 

" tobacco and slaves 34 

Corn and com areas 138 

" crops and increase 139 

Court of Claims 256 

Courts, Supreme and Circuit 252,2=^5 

Covode Investigation 566 

Credit Mobilier Commission 601 

CromwelHan republicanism 18 

Cushing... 567 

Customs Service 218 

D. 

Dakota Territory 127 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 281-84 

Dallas and tariff of 1846 537 

Debt and Bonds " 221 

Declaration of Independence 83 

" what it did 84 

" signing of. 84 

Delaware Colony 58 

•* population, resources, government 

and politics 285-88 

Delegates, Territorial 198 

Democracy 12 



PAGB 

Democrat and Jacobin 463 

Democrats, Clintonian 479 

Democrats, Free Soil 540 

Democratic party 499 

Denominations 188 

Department of Justice 249 

" " Agriculture 250 

" " State 207 

Departments 207, 260 

" organization of. 2c6 

De Soto 28 

District-Attorneys 256 

District Courts 255 

District of Columbia ." 106 

" " " government of. 258 

" " " population, resources, 

government and politics 288-90 

District of Washington no 

Diplomatic Service 208 

Disputed Election of 1876 608 

Doges of Venice i3 

Douglas 547, 552 

Draft 577 

Dred Scott decision 561 

Dutch Realm 54 

DweUings in U. S 132 

£ 

Education, see the States. 

" Bureau of. 244 

" the system 183 

Election of M. C's 195 

•• i860 566 

" contest of 1824 497 

" " " 1800 4C1 

" 1876 608 

Elections, Presidential, see Administrations 
and Congresses. 

Electoral college 202 

Electors 202 

Electoral Votes, at each election, see Ad- 
ministrations and Congresses. 

Eleventh Amendment 448 

Emancipation proclamation 579 

Embargo act 472 

Endicot 45 

English acquisition 67 

" attitude 447 

England's bad fix 71 

" Era of good feeling " 486 

European titles 24 

Executive Department 201 

F. 

Families in U. S 132 

Farms, areas, values 153 

Federal party 433 

" " death of 487 

Federalism 433 

Fifteenth Amendment 590 

First owners of America 24 

Flag, the first 83 

" history of. 99 

Florida, admission of. uS 

" invasion 487 

" population, resources, government 

and politics : 29^~94 

Florida purchase 93, 488 

Force Bill 513 

Fourteenth Amendment 585 

France, population and square miles 132 

Franklin and Grenville 76 

Freedman's Bureau bill 585 

Freeman's History 104 

Free Soil party 54° 

" Trade and Protection 677 



INDEX. 



715 



PAGE 

French Alliance 99 

" Empire 64 

" loss of territory 67 

" policy 70 

" Directory 456 

Fox, George 56 

Frothingham , 104 

Fugitive slave law 545 

Funding and refunding 222 

G. 

Gadsden Purchase 95 

Garfield's Administration. 618 

" Assassination 620 

Geary 547 

Genet and intrigue 446 

Geneva award 603 

Genoa and Pisa, republics of. 12 

Geological Survey 245 

Georgia Colony 59 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 294-98 

Germany, population and square miles 132 

Giddings and Slavery 529 

Gold and silver product 165 

Gorges, Gosnold, etc 31 

Government, see the States. 

" three branches ot 191 

" " forms II 

" of Territories 258 

" D. C 258 

Grant's Administrations 591 

Great Britain, population and square miles... 132 

Greehy, Horace 596 

Greenback Cuirency 577 

Greenback party 6c6 

Grist-mill productb 161 

H. 

Habeas Corpus 577 

Hamilton's financial plan 439 

Harrison's Administration 526 

Harrison's death 527 

Hartford Convention 482 

Hay, areas and crops 142 

Hayes' Administration 611 

Henry, Patrick 74 

Henry VH 26 

Hospitals, Marine 216 

Horses , 152 

House of Representatives 195 

" of number of members 196 

" organization of. 197 

Hudson's voyages 54 

Huguenots 29 

I 

Idaho Territory 127 

" population, resources, government and 

politics 298-300 

Illinois, admission of. 114 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 301-4 

Illiteracy 185 

Immigration 133 

" value of. '. 134 

" its causes 134 

Impeachment of Chase 467 

." "Johnson 588 

Impressment of seamen 447, 471 

Independent 18 

Independence, drift towards 69 

Hall 81 

Indian Bureau 242 

" country „ 126 



PAGE 

Indiana, admission of. 113 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 305-8 

Interior Department 238 

Internal Revenue 217, 218 

Iowa, admission of. 119 

" population, resources, government and 

politics 309-12 

Iron ore 167 

" and steel industry 161 

Italy, population and square miles 132 

J. 

Jackson's Administrations 503 

Jacobins 443 

Jamestown founded 33 

Japan, population and square miles 132 

Jay's treaty 449 

Jefferson's Administrations 462 

Jesuits on the Lakes 65 

John Brown raid 565 

Johnson deserts his party 584 

Johnson, impeachment of 488 

Judicial Department 251 

Juries, U. S 257 

Justices, air 253 

" chief and associate 252 

K. 

Kansas, admission of 121 

" troubles 554, 556 

" bill 564 

" Nebraska bill 551 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 313-16 

Kentucky, admission of. 109 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 317-21 

Kerr, Michael 609 

Know-Nothings 553, 556 

Ku-Klux-Klan .■ 593 

L. 

Laconia 44 

Land Office 239 

" System 240 

La Salle and the Gulf 66 

Laurens, Henry j 98 

Law-making 198 

Lead and Zinc 167 

Lecompton Constitution 565 

Lee, Richard Henry 83 

Lee's Surrender 584 

Legal Tender Act 595 

Legislative Department 191 

Liberal Interpreters 442 

" Republican party 597 

Liberty Party 53^ 

Library, Congressional 199 

Libraries in U. S 186 

Life-Saving Service 215 

Light-Houses 215 

Lincoln's Administrations 571 

" Assassination 584 

" at Gettysburg 15 

Live-Stock, number and value 152 

Livingstone 450 

Locke's Constitution 53 

Log-Cabin Campaign 525 

London Company 31 

Losses in collection 224 

Louisiana, admission of 112 

" and France 66 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 331-24 



716 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Louisiana Purchase 92, 465 

Lowndes 478 

M. 

Machinery of Government igi 

Madison's Administrations 474 

Maine, admission of. 115 

" Colony 39 

" Titles 51 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 325-'-^ 8 

Manufactures, history of. 155 

" character and value 157 

" see the States. 

Marine Corps 237 

Marquette and Mississippi 65 

Marshals, U. S 257 

Maryland Charter 36 

" Settlement of 38 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 329-32 

Mason and Dixon line 57 

Massachusetts Bay Co 45 

" Colony 45 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 332-36 

Mayflower 43 

Mexican Cession 9 

" War 535 

Michigan, admission of 118 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 336-40 

Milk 151 

Milch cows in U. S 152 

Militia of U. S 137 

Military Academy 232 

Mining and Minerals 164 

Ministers 209 

Minnesota, admission of. 121 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 340-43 

Mints 214 

Mississippi, admission of. 114 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 344-47 

Missouri, admission of. 116 

" and Slavery .'# 488 

" Compromise 489 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 347-51 

Monroe's Administrations 486 

Monroe Doctrine 494 

Montana Territory 127 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 352-54 

Montesquieu 251 

Muhlenberg 446 

N. 

Naming of States, see the States. 

Nantes, Edict of. 54 

Narragansett Indians 48 

National banks 219, 580 

Bank, 1816 485 

" " death of. 516 

" " the first 441 

" Currency 220 

" debt and bonds 221 

" road 475 

" Republican party 498 

Nationalities, blending of 136 

Naturalization laws 457 

Native American party 553 

NavalAcademy 236 

" asylum 235 I 



PAGE 

Naval Observatory 234 

Navy Department 233 

U. S , 237 

Nebraska, admission of 122 

" population, resources, government 

and politics -354-57 

Meutrality, armed 454 

Nevada, admission of. 122 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 358-60 

New France 64 

" Government of U. S 102 

" " First Election 102 

" " " Congress 102 

New Hampshire, patent 44 

" " population, resources, gov- 
ernment and politics 361-64 

New Jersey Colony 55 

" " population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 364-67 

New Mexico Territory 125 

" " poptilation, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 368-70 

New Netherlands : 54 

Newspapers 187 

New York Colony 57 

" " population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 370-74 

Non-Intercourse 476 

North Carolina Colony 51 

" " population, resources, gov- 
ernment and politics 374-78 

Northwest Territory 96, 106 

Nullification 508, 511 

O. 

Oats and other grains ^ 141 

Occupations, see the States 136 

Oglethorpe and Georgia 59 

Ohio, admission of m 

" population, resources, government and 

politics 378-82 

Oregon, admission of 121 

" boundary 537 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 382-85 

Oregon treaty 94, 530, 533 

Otis, James 72 

Outlines of the States 63 

Ojcen 152 

P. 

Pairing off 524 

Palo Alto 535 

Panic of 1857 559 

" of 1837 518 

Patent Office 243 

Patents, first English 26 

" French and Spanish 27-28 

Parties, in general 430 

" their uses 430 

" primitive 431 

" of the Revolution 432 

" " " Confederation 432 

" " " Constitution 433 

Peace of 1783 and results 88 

" " 1815 483 

" Congress 569 

Penn and the Quakers 56 

Pennsylvania, population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 386-90 

Pension office and system 241 

Pet Banks 522 

Petroleum 170 

Pierce's Administration 550 



INDEX. 



717 



PAGE 

Pilgrim advent 41 

Pinckney, C. C 454 

Pitt 67 

Platforms, see Administrations and Con- 
gresses. 

Plymouth Company 32 

" Council 59, 44 

" Rock 43 

" Pocket Veto " 507 

Politics, see the States. 

Polk's Administration 534 

Polygamy 645 

Ponce de Leon 28 

Popham, George 39 

Popular Government 14 

Population, of U. S 132 

" by classes 132 

" and rate of increase 132 

" and rank 132 

of leading countnes 132 

Populations, see the States. 

Postmaster-General -. 246 

Postmasters-General, all 249 

Post-offices 248 

Post-Office Department 246 

Postal Notes 248 

" Services 249 

" Union 246 

Potato areas and crops 142 

Precious metals 165 

Preparation for citizenship 19 

Presbyterians 18 

President-making 201 

Presidents and Cabinets 204 

President's duties , 204 

Printing office, public 200 

Prohibition 661 

" party 600 

Prophecy 104 

Protection and Free Trade 677 

Protectionists, Convention of. 502 

Protective idea 478, 490 

Public Lands and System 240 

Puritan and his advent 18, 44 

" and Pilgrim 43 

Q. 

Buaker and his advent 18, 56 
uicksilver 167 

R. 

Radical Men, Convention of 581 

Railroads, see States 179 

Raleigh's scheme 30 

Randall, S. J 609 

Randolph, Peyton ...; 79 

Rebellion begun 575 

Rebellion ended 584 

Reconstruction 5S4, 595 

Reeder 547 

Removals from office 464 

Republic 14 

Republican (Democratic) Party 443 

" Party (new) 557 

" revolution 463 

Resolutions of 1798-9 45S 

Revenue 580 

Revolution of 1688 61 

Revolutionary Government 97 

Resumption Act 605 

Rhode Island Colony 47 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 390-93 

Rice areas and crops 143 

Rifle Clubs 594 



PACK 

River and Harbor Bill 613 

Rotation in office 506 

Ruling by States 261 

" Nationally , 191 

" through Parties ..;. 430 

Russia, population and square miles 132 

Rye, areas and crops 141 

S. 

Schools, Common 184 

" comparison with other nations 185 

" expenditures for 184 

School teachers 184 

" attendance 184 

Seal of the Union 99 

Seceded States, return of. 594 

Secession movement 570 

" of States 123 

Secretary of Interior.. 238 

Secretaries of Interioi, all 246 

Secretary of Navy 233 

Secretaries of Navy, all 237 

Secretary of State 207 

Secretaries of State, all 211 

" of Treasury, all 225 

Secretary of War 226 

Secretaries of War, all 229 

Sedgewick, Theodore 459 

Seminole War 488 

Senate, nature and powers 192 

Senate machinery 194 

Senators, election of. 194 

Sentiment, Washington's 103 

" Jefferson's 103 

" Sir James Mcintosh 103 

" Story on the Constitution 103 

Shaftesbury's Constitution 53 

Sharswood on the people 13 

Sheep 152 

Signal office 227 

Situation in 1861 573 

Slavery, Abolition of. 578 

" in South Carolina 53 

Slaves, tobacco and cotton 34 

Smith and Virginia 34 

Sorghum 145 

South Carolina Colony 53 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 394-97 

Sovereignty, nature and origm 16, 17 

Spain, population and square miles 132 

Sparta, assembly of. 12 

Speakers of House Representatives, see Ad- 
ministrations and Congresses. 

Square miles in U. S 132 

Squatter Sovereignty 547 

Stamp Act 75 

State and citizen 20 

" areas 261, 429 

" Department 207 

" cessions 89 

" ownership 88 

" outlines .. 63 

States 97 

States, Ruling by 261, 429 

" Names of. 261, 429 

Stephens, Alexander A 573 

St. Lawrence basin 64 

Stiles, Ezra 78 

Strict interpreters 442 

Story on our titles 24 

Stuart Dynasty 59 

Sub-Treasury plan 522 

Sugar cane, history of. 143 

" areas and crops 144 



718 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Supreme Court 252 

ofD. C 256 

Supreme Justices, all 253 

Surplus Revenue -Si?, 522, 701 

Sweden, New 55 

Swedish advent 55 

Swine 152 

T. 

rariff of 1789 ^ 439 

" of 1792 442 

„ 0^794 449 

01 1800 460 

" of I8l2 478 

" of 1824 495 

" of 1828 502 

" of 1832, 1833 509, 513 

of 1842 528 

:: oj'846 537 

of 1857 559 

" ofi86i 576 

" of 1874 604 

" of 1883 622 

Taxes and debts, see the States. 

Taylor's Administration 542 

" death 545 

Tea Act and Congress 77 

Telegraphs 181 

Telephones 182 

Tennessee, admission of. no 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 397-401 

Tenures, their nature 32 

Tenure of office bill 587 

Territory of the Northwest..... 90, in 

Territories, the earliest 106 

Territorial governments 258 

Texas annexation 94, 119 

" population, resources, government and 

politics 401-5 

Texas treaty 530, 533 

Tiiirteen States, the old 105 

" " when they ratified.. 105 

Thirteenth Amendment '. 580 

Tobacco areas and crops 150 

" history of. 149 

" cotton and slaves 34 

Tory party 432 

Townsend's Tax Scheme 72 

Treasurer, U. S 217 

Treasury Department 211 

Treaty of 1778 445 

" of 1783 88 

" of 1763 67 

" of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo 539 

Turkey, population and square miles 132 

Tyler's desertion 527 

U. 

Union, beginnings of. 80 

United Colonies (thirteen) 82 

United New England Colonies 48 

United States of America 85 

" " rank of. 132 

Uuh Territory 125 



I PAGB 

Utah, population, resources, government and 
politics 406-^ 

V. 

Van Buren's Administration 520 

Vegetation of U. S 131 

Vermont, admission of. 107 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 409-12 

Vice-President 206 

Victor and spoils ^rS 

Virginia Colony 33 

" population, resources, government 

and politics 4x2-16 

Volunteers, call for 576 

Voters in U. S 135 

War Department .• 225 

" of 1812 477 

" and independence 82 

" of the Rebellion 574 

Washington Territory 125 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 416-19 

Washington's Administrations 436-53 

" farewell 451 

" sentiments , 78 

Water power in use 164 

Wayne, General , 112 

Weather Bureau 227 

Webster 544 

Webster and Hayne debate 507 

West Virginia, admission of. 122 

" " population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 419-22 

Wheat and wheat areas 140 

" crops and increase 140 

Whig party............ '. 432,558 

♦* " death of. 551 

Whig situation 546 

Whiskey Rebellion 441 

White, H. L 517 

White League 594 

Wild-cat Currency 522 

William and Mary 59, 62 

Williams, Roger 46, 47 

Wilmot proviso 536 

Winthrop 46 

Wisconsin, admission of. 120 

" population, resources, govern- 
ment and politics 423-26 

Wool 151 

Wright, Silas 532 

Wyoniing Territory 128 

" population, resources, government 
and politics 427-29 



X. Y. Z. Commission 455 

Y. 

Yearn ans and slaves 53 

York, Duke of. 57 



PART IV. 

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN 
CAMPAIGN OF 1884. 



NOMINATING CONVENTION AT CHICAGO. 

THE PARTY PLATFORM. 



BIOGRAPHIES OF THE NOMINEES FOR PRESIDENT 

AND vice-president: 
HON. JAMES G. BLAINE, OF MAINE, 

AND 

GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN, OF ILLINOIS. 

(719) 




CALL OF THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN 
COMMITTEE. 

N Nov. 7, 1883, Colonel John A. Martin, Secretary of the 
National Republican Committee, published, at Atchison, 
Kan., a call for the meeting of the Committee at the 
Arlington Hotel, Washington, D. C, on Dec. 12, 1883, 
at 12 o'clock, for the purpose of deciding on the date 
and place of holding the next National Republican Convention. 
MEETING OF COMMITTEE.— ThQ Committee met at the 
Arlington, Dec. 12, 1883, noon, and organized by electing 
Senator D. M. Sabin, Minn., Chairman, the other candidates 
being ex-Senator Chaffee, CoL, and John M. Forbes, Mass. 
Members representing all the States and Territories were present. 
TIME AND PLACE OF CONVENTION— Mt^v 2ido^t{ng 
resolutions regretting the loss to the Committee by the death 
of Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut, late Chairman, Chicago was 
selected as the place of meeting of the National Republican Con- 
vention, and the time fixed as Tuesday, June 3, 1884. 

OFFICIAL CALL. — An official call for the Convention was 
then adopted and signed by all the members of the Committee. 
It ran as follows : 

"The Republican National Convention will meet at Chicago, 111., on Tuesday, 
June 3, 1884, at 12 o'clock, noon, for the nomination of candidates to be supported 
for President and Vice-President at the next election. The Republican electors of 
the several States, and all other voters, without regard to past political differences, 
who are in favor of elevating and dignifying American labor, extending and pro- 
tecting home industry, giving free popular education to the masses of the people, 
securing free suffrage and an honest counting of ballots, effectually protecting all 
human rights in every section of our common country, and who desire to promote 
friendly feeling and permanent harmony throughout the land by securing a National 
Government pledged to these objects and principles, are cordially invited to send 
for each State four delegates at large, and for each congressional district two dele- 
gates, and for each representative at large two delegates." 

46 ' (721) 



722 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

MEETING OF CONVENTION.— ThQ National Republi- 
can Convention, the eighth in the history of the party, met pur- 
suant to call in Chicago, at noon of June 3, 1884. It was com- 
posed of 820 delegates, as against 756 for the Convention of 
1880. The New England delegates numbered 'j6\ those from 
the Middle States 156; those from the Southern States 300 — a 
gain of 3 1 ; those from the Western States 270 — a gain of 30 ; 
those from the District of Columbia and the Territories 18. 

The Convention Hall (see p. 714), situated on the east line of 
the city, on the shore of Lake Michigan, was a part of the Ex- 
position building. It was regarded as the largest and completest 
ever thrown open to a deliberative body. Its seating capacity 
was estimated at 13,000. Its internal arrangement is shown in 
the cut. 

At 12.24 P- M. Chairman Sabin rapped the Convention to order, 
with a gavel, presented to him, and composed of wood from every 
State and Territory. The handle was a piece of the Charter 
Oak of Hartford, Conn. After prayer by a Chicago clergyman 
the Convention elected a temporary Chairman. The National 
Committee had recommended for this office the name of ex- 
Senator Powell Clayton, Ark. When his name was submitted 
to the Convention, that of John R. Lynch (colored), Miss., was 
moved as substitute. The total vote cast was 818, of which 
Clayton received 387, and Lynch 431. While this vote was not 
regarded as a test of the strength of any Presidential candidate, 
it showed that no name thus far presented could command a 
majority of the Convention on first ballot. 

The names placed in nomination were : Blaine, Me. ; Arthur, 
N. Y. ; Edmunds, Vt. ; Sherman, O.; Logan, 111.; Hawley, Conn. 
It required 41 1 votes to nominate. The Convention was perma- 
nently organized by the election of General John B. Henderson, 
Mo., as Chairman. Eloquent speeches were made by those 
nominating the respective candidates, whose names were re- 
ceived with rounds of applause. 

THE PLATFORM: 

The Republicans of the United States, in Convention assembled, rehew their 
allegiance to the pjinciples upon which they have triumphed in six successive Presi- 



CONVENTION OF 1884. 723 

dential elections, and congratulate the American people on the attainment of so 
many results in legislation and administration by which the Republican party has 
after saving the Union, done so much to render its institutions just, equal and benefi- 
cent — the safeguard of liberty and the embodiment of the best thought and highest 
purposes of our citizens. The Republican party has gained its strength by quick 
and faithful response to the demands of the people for the freedom and the equality 
of all men; for a united nation assuring the rights of all citizens; for the elevation 
of labor; for an honest currency; for purity in legislation, and for integrity and 
accountability in all departments of the government, and it accepts anew the duty 
of leading in the work of progress and reform. 

DEA TH OF GARFIELD.— ^Q lament the death of President Garfield, whose 
sound statesmanship, long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise of a strong and 
successful administration, a promise fully realized during the short period of his 
office as President of the United Slates. His distinguished success in war and in 
peace has endeared him to the hearts of the American people. 

ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRA TlOJV.—ln the administration of President Arthur 
we recognize a wise conservative and patriotic policy under which the country has 
been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we believe his eminent services are 
entitled to and will receive the hearty approval of every citizen. It is the first duty 
of a good government to protect the rights and promote the interests of its own peo- 
ple; the largest diversity of industry is most productive of general prosperity and of 
the comfort and independence of the people. 

PROTECTIVE TARIFF.— ^G, therefore, demand that the imposition of 
duties on foreign imports shall be made, not for " revenue only," but that, in raising 
the requisite revenues for the government, such duties shall be so levied as to afford 
security to our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the 
laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its 
just reward, and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity. 

Against the so-called economical system of the Democratic party, which would de- 
grade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our earnest protest; the Democratic 
party has failed completely to relieve the people of the burden of unnecessary taxa- 
tion by a wise reduction of the surplus. 

The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of the tariff and to 
reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and indiscriminate process of horizontal re- 
duction, but by such methods as will relieve the taxpayer without injuring the laborer 
or the great productive interests of the country. 

We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United States, the serious 
depression which it is now experiencing and the danger threatening its future pros- 
perity ; and we, therefore, respect the demands of the representatives of this impor- 
tant agricultural interest for a readjustment of duty upon foreign wool in view that 
such industry shall have full and adequate protection. 

COINAGE. — We have always recommended the best money known to the civil- 
ized world, and we urge that an effort be made to unite all commercial nations in 
the establishment of the international standard, which shall fix for all the relative 
value of gold and silver coinage. 

COMMERCE. — The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and between 



724 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the States is one of the most important prerogatives of the general government, and 
the Republican party distinctly announces its purpose to support such legislation as 
will fully and efficiently cany out the constitutional power of Congress over inter- 
State commerce. The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations is 
a wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people, and we favor 
legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive charges for trans- 
portation, and that shall secure to the people and to the railroads alike the fair and 
equal protection of the laws. 

AMERICAN LABOR, — We favor the establishment of a national bureau of 
labor, the enforcement of the eight-hour law, a wise and judicidus system of general 
education by adequate appropriation from the national revenues wherever the same 
is needed. 

We believe that everywhere the protection to a citizen of American birth must be 
secured to citizens by American adoption, and we favor the settlement of national 
differences by international arbitration. 

The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and in a desire 
that all men may be free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our working- 
men in competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad. In 
this spirit we denounce the importation of contract labor, whether from Europe or 
Asia, as an offence against the spirit of American institutions, and we pledge our- 
selves to sustain the present la\r restricting Chinese immigration, and to provide 
such further legislation as is nect-ssnry to carry out its purposes. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. — The reform of the civil service auspiciously 
begun under Republican administration should be completed by the further exten- 
sion of the reform system already established by law to all the grades of the ser- 
vice to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be ob- 
served in all executive appointments, and all laws at variance with the objects of 
existing reformed legislation should be repealed, to the end that the dangers of free 
institutions which lurk in the power of official patronage may be wisely and 
effectively avoided. 

PUBLIC LANDS. — The public lands are a heritage of the people of the United 
States and should be reserved as far as possible for small holdings by actual settlers. 
We are opposed to the acquisition of large tracts of these lands by corporations or 
individuals, especially where such holdings are in the hands of non-resident aliens, 
and we will endeavor to obtain such legislation as will tend to correct this evil. 

We demand of Congress the speedy forfeiture of all land grants which have 
lapsed by reason of non-compliance with acts of incorporation, in all cases where 
there has been no attempt in good faith to perform the conditions of such grants. 

PENSIONS TO SOLDIERS.— The grateful thanks of the American people 
are due to the Union soldiers and sailors of the late war, and the Republican party 
stands pledged to suitable pensions to all who were disabled and for the widows 
and orphans of those who died in the war. The Republican party pledges itself to 
the repeal-of the limitation contained in the Arrears Act of 1879, so that all invalid 
soldiers shall share alike, and their pensions shall begin with the date of disability 
or discharge and not with the date of the application, 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. — The Republican party favors a policy which shall 






CONVENTION OF 1884. 725 

keep us from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which shall give the 
right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in America, and the 
policy which seeks peace and trade with all powers, but especially with those of the 
Western Hemisphere. We demand the restoration of our navy to its old-time 
strength and efficiency, that it may in any sea protect the rights of American citizens 
and the interest of American commerce, and we call upon Congress to remove the 
burdens under which American shipping has been depressed, so that it may again 
be true that we have a commerce which leaves no sea unexplored, and a navy 
which takes no law from superior force. 

TERRITORIAL OFFICES.— ThoX. appoiniments by the President to offices 
in» the Territories should be made" from the bona Jide citizens and residents of the 
Territories wherein they are to serve. 

POL YGAMY. — That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as shall 
promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy within our territory, and 
divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power of the so-called Mormon Church, 
and that the law so enacted should be rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if 
possible, and by the military if need be. 

SOUTHERN OUTRAGES.— ThQ people of the United States in their organ- 
ized capacity constitute a nation and not a mere confederacy of States. The national 
government is supreme within the sphere of its national duty, but the States have 
reserved rights which should be faithfully maintained; each should be guarded with 
jealous care so that the harmony of our system of government may be preserved and 
the Union kept inviolate. The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the mainte- 
nance of a free ballot, an honest count and a correct return. We denounce the fraud 
and violence practised by the Democratic party in Southern States, by which the will 
of the voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free institutions, and we 
solemnly arraign the Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of the fruit of 
such fraud and violence. 

SYMPATHY AND PLEDGES.— V^e extend to the Republicans of the 
South, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge 
to them our most earnest efforts to promote the passage of such legislation as will 
secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color, the full and complete recogni- 
tion, possession and exercise of all civil and political rights. 

777^ BALLOTS: 

Candidates. 1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 

Blaine 334K 349 375 54' 

Arthur 278 276 274 207 

Edmunds 93 85 69 4' 

Logan 6^/2 61 53 7 

Sherman 30 28 25 o 

Hawley 13 13 13 15 

Lincoln 4 4 8 2 

W.T.Sherman 2 2 2 O 

Total votes cast 818" 818 819 813 

Alabama and Louisiana each lacked I vote on first and second ballots ; Louisiana 

I on third; Illinois, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee each i, and Texas 

3, on fourth. 




LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 

HE nominee of the Republican party for President in 1884 
is James Gillespie Blaine, of Maine. He was born Jan- 
uary 31, 1830, in Union Township, Washington county, 
Pa., and is now fifty-four years old. 

PARENTAGE. — His maternal great-grandfather was 
Neal Gillespie, who -had settled, before the Revolution, on what 
was known as "the Old Indian Hill Farm" on the west banks 
of the Monongahela, in Washington county, Pa. It was on this 
farm that the subject of our sketch was born. The Gillespies 
were among the most prominent and wealthy families in the 
State. They were an educated, brainy stock. The men were 
large and strong of limb, the female portion were very beautiful 
and of queenly carriage. 

His paternal great-grandfather was Colonel Ephraim Blaine, 
one of the Scotch-Irish pioneers, who did so much in early times 
to fight Indians, level forests, and push our religious and political 
institutions westward. The spirit of this class of people need not 
be enlarged upon here. They were brave, energetic, pious, 
indomitable. Wherever they went they left a solid impress. 
Their homes were temples of liberty and altars of the great God. 
Their descendants are among our noblest civilians and our great- 
est and best men in professional and public life. 

Colonel Ephraim Blaine was one of the earliest settlers in the 
Cumberland Valley. He and his companion pioneers were the 
settlers in and around Carlisle and founders of the town. The 
stone Presbyterian Church, which a second generation built, is 
still standing, and near by it the old-fashioned residence of the 
(726) 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 727 

Blaines. The Colonel's title was no mere newspaper one. He 
was a veritable hero of the Revolution. Washing-ton credited 
him with the salvation of his ragged and starved army at Valley 
Forge. The Colonel was Commissary-General of the Northern 
Department, and indefatigable in collecting money for supplies 
and clothing, with which to relieve the trying situation. It is 
unnecessary to say that he was a Presbyterian of the most pro- 
nounced type and an unyielding patriot. 

His son James Blaine was a great traveller, and, it is said, 
spent most of his fortune in visiting the various parts of Europe. 
On his return he went to what was then — the beginning of the 
present century — called the West, that is, into the wilderness of 
the Youghiogheny, and established a store at the mouth of Ten 
Mile Run, in Greene county. In a short time he removed to 
Brownville, Fayette county. Across the Monongahela, in 
Washington county, lies West Brownsville, in or near which 
lay the '* Old Indian Hill Farm," owned by the Gillespies. 

There seems to have been a good feeling between the Blaines 
and Gillespies from the first, and in their descendants there has 
been a close intermingling of the family names. James Blaine's 
son, Ephraim L. Blaine, arose into prominence in the new sec- 
tion. He became a magistrate, was known as " Squire Blaine," 
and became noted for his liberality and many manly qualities. In 
1842 he was elected Prothonotary of Washington county on the 
Whig ticket. This necessitated his removal to Washington, the 
county-seat. He carried his religion and Scotch-Irish traits 
with him, and was known as a firmly upright, independent man, 
and one much admired in his community for charitable giving. 

Of him a visitor to the Blaine homestead says : 

•' A short drive brought me to Washington, the county-seat of this county, and 
one of the first men I met was Major John H, Ewing, an old veteran now past four- 
score years. 

" I married the sister of Ephraim L. Blaine. He and I went to school together 
over in yonder college, and I knew him nearly all his life. He was a leader in the 
mischief of the school, and fond of all the good things of this life. He was the 
handsomest man I ever saw, and he had a wife that was a match for him. She 
was one of the noblest women I ever knew. She inherited all the sterling traits of 
character and strength of mind for which the Gillespies were noted. So, you see, 



728 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Blaine sprang from the best of slock on both sides. His father was justice of the 
peace over in West Brownsville for a number of years, and afterwards prothonotary 
of the county He was elected in 1842 and came hereto live. James G. was only 
about 12 years old then, and almost every middle-aged man youmiet on the streets 
here remembers all about him." 

Years before he had married this Miss Gillespie, grand- 
daughter of the original owner of the " Old Indian Farm," and 
had built himself a home on the Gillespie estate. It was a brick 
mansion, and the one in which James G. Blaine, was born. 
Though of the same extraction she was a Catholic. The chil- 
dren of this union of Ephraim L. Blaine and Miss Gillespie 
were seven in number, five boys and two girls. 

FAMILY RELIGION,— Th^sQ children all adhered to the 
traditional faith of the Blaines. The second son was James 
Gillespie Blaine, our subject. On his removal to Maine he be- 
came attached to the Congregational Church there. As a point 
has been made of his religious views, it may be met once for all 
by the following from the Kennebec Journal^ printed at his 
home, Augusta, Me. It says : " Mr. Blaine has been for nearly 
twenty years a consistent member of the Orthodox Congrega- 
tional Church in this, the city of his home. Orthodox Con- 
gregationalism in Maine is the same creed as Presbyterianism 
in Pennsylvania." 

Con(;erning his own and family religion he wrote, March 10, 
1876: 

" My ancestors on my father's side were, as you know, always identified with the 
Presbyterian Church, and they were prominent and honored in the old colony of 
Pennsylvania. But I will never consent to make any public declaration upon the 
subject, and for two reasons: First, , because I abhor the introduction of anything 
that looks like a religious test or qualification for office in a republic where perfect 
freedom of conscience is the birthright of every citizen ; and, second, because my 
mother was a devoted Catholic. I would not for a thousand Presidencies speak a 
disrespectful word of my mother's religion, and no pressure will draw me into any 
avowal of hostility or unfriendliness to Catholics, though I have never received, and 
do not expect, any political support from them." 

COLLEGE CAREER.— Hq entered Washington College 
(1843) at the early age of thirteen. Here he soon became popu- 
lar with his classmates. College sports began to round out his 
thin, angular form. He became a leader in athletic exercises, 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 729 

and laid the foundations of the splendid physique of the after 
man. His habits were studious. Though no bookworm he 
took easy rank at the head of his class. He acquired learning 
readily, and, with the aid of a wonderful memory, retained it. 
His power of assimilating mental food was extraordinary. His 
literary tastes were sharp and well-defined, and these he indulged 
with the zeal of an enthusiast. Fond of debate and of college 
disputation, firm of conviction and bold of thought, he entered the 
contest fully equipped, and seldom failed to charm and Convince. 
Knowing his combativeness, and his readiness in historic and 
political matters — he was a youthful Whig of the most pro- 
nounced type — it was the delight of those Democratically in- 
clined to provoke him to discussion, well knowing that, even if 
discomfited in argument, they would surely be entertained. 

Though inclined most to historic reading, he kept abreast of 
the requirements in mathematics and the sciences, and never 
neglected the details of study, such as orderly arrangement of 
subjects and verbatim acquisition of underlying axioms. This 
served to give him his great readiness in debate, and a firm rock 
of argument on which to stand. His college life served to de- 
velop and test the manly side of his nature. Kindly disposed to 
all, he became the particular favorite of the newer, or weaker, 
students, to whose defence he always came when aggrieved by 
the pranks of their elders. He graduated, at the age of seven- 
teen, with the first honors of the institution, and started life with 
a mental fortune accorded to but few. It was backed with a 
character and disposition which combined all the elements of 
success, and waited not for tardy opportunity, but hewed it 
boldly out of the passing years. 

Though his lot was soon to be cast in a remote State and 
amid new friends and interests, Mr. Blaine has always retained a; 
warm affection for his alma mater and the scenes of his birth and 
early associations. On the celebration of the looth Anniversary 
of Washington county in 1 88 1, he wrote : "I shall always re- 
call with pride that my ancestry and kindred were and are not 
inconspicuously connected with its history, and that on either 
side of the beautiful river in Protestant and in Catholic ceme- 



730 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

teries five generations of my own blood sleep in honored 
graves." 

A TEACHER. — On leaving college he accepted a professor- 
ship in the Western Military Institute, at Blue Lick Springs, 
Ky. Here were some 450 students. The position was to prove 
a test of mental quality as well as ability to control and disci- 
pline. Says a professor, " He was a tall, thin, handsome, earnest 
man, with the same fascinating manners and speech he has now." 
He soon became popular with the boys, who loved, respected 
and made a confidant of him. » He knew the full names and 
character of every boy in the institution, and so governed from 
a standpoint which robbed restraint of its sting and made disci- 
pline cheerfully acceptable. 

Here he had opportunity to test his personal courage in a 
practical" way. A dispute arose between the faculty of the 
school and the owners of Blue Lick Springs, as to their re- 
spective rights. The dispute resulted in an affray, in which 
pistols were drawn and knives unsheathed, but the young pro- 
fessor bravely held his ground with the use of his fists alone, 
which he called into dexterous and telling play. 

The wife of the principal, Colonel Thornton F. Johnson, kept 
a female seminary at Millersburg, some twenty miles distant. 
Among the pupils here was Miss Harriet Stanwood, the de- 
scendant of an old and excellent Massachusetts family which 
had moved to Maine, of which State she was a native. The 
young professor was smitten with her charms and a courtship 
was the result. In order to heighten the romance of the situa- 
tion she withheld from her lover all knowledge of her family and 
station, and when school broke up returned to her home. He 
followed her, and a marriage resulted. 

After spending a year or two at the Military Institute Mr. 
Blaine came back to Pennsylvania, where he engaged in the 
study of the law, which he pursued till well grounded in its prin- 
ciples, though he never applied for admission to the bar. This 
time was in all probability covered by his period of professorship 
in the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind at Philadelphia. 
Says William Chapin, principal of the institution : 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 73X 

" Yes, I remember young James G. Blaine distinctly. He was principal teacher 
here on the boys' side for two years. He rang the bell one summer afternoon in 1852 
in answer to an advertisement for teachers. There were thirty or forty other appli- 
cants, but his manner was so winning and he possessed so many manifestly valuable 
qualities that I closed an engagement with him at once. He was married, and his 
wife and little son Walker came here with him. His qualities, which impressed 
me most deeply, were his culture, the thoroughness of his education and his unfailing 
self-possession. He was also a man of very decided will, and was very much dis- 
posed to argument. He was young then — only twenty -two — and was rather impul- 
sive, leaping to a conclusion very quickly. But he was always ready to defend his 
conclusions, however suddenly he seemed to have reached them. We had many a 
familiar discussion in this very room, and his arguments always astonished me by 
the knowledge they displayed of facts in history and politics. His memory was 
remarkable, and seemed to retain details which ordinary men would forget." 

Says Mr. Williams, now holding position in the institution : 

'* Everybody loved Mr. Blaine and his wife. Both were always ready to do any- 
thing for our amusement in leisure hours, and we had a great deal of fun, into 
which they entered heartily. I think that Mrs. Blaine read nearly all of Dickens' 
works aloud to us, and Mr. Blaine used to make us roar with laughter by reading 
out of a book entitled ' Charcoal Sketches.' " 

While connected with this institution he prepared a history 
of it from the scattered records which came in his way. It has 
been spoken of as a model of condensed information and neat 
chirography, and is now prized as a memorial of his ability and 
interest in the institution and its work. It records him as a 
teacher from Aug. 5, 1852, to Nov. 23, 1854. 

AN EDITOR. — After leaving the institution the young 
couple moved to Augusta, which city has, ever since, been their 
home. He was quite a favorite with his wife's brothers, who, 
like himself, were men of ability and energy. They backed him 
with all their influence, and in 1854, in partnership with Joseph 
Baker, a prominent lawyer, he purchased the Kennebec yournal^ 
of which paper he became the editor. It was a weekly paper, 
the organ of the Whig party in the county, and therefore a good 
stock and very influential. After conducting the Join^nal with 
signal ability for three years he sold his interest in it, and (1857) 
became editor of the Portland Daily Advertiser. During the 
campaign of i860 he returned temporarily to the yournal, on 
account of the illness of the editor. His editorial career covered 
a period of six years. It was marked throughout with energetic 



732 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

management and bold, strong writing. As a school it was 
invaluable to one of his active temperament and desire to 
rise. 

ENTERING POLITICS.-At has often been said of him, on 
account of his vast information and masterly style, that a great 
journalist was lost when he entered public life. He has himself 
said that he never expected to command a written style equal to 
that of his spoken one, when stimulated by a good cause, and 
urged on by the excitement of a great occasion. The truth is he 
is master of both a superb written and spoken language, and it 
is really difficult to tell in which he excels. 

When the Whig party went to pieces, Mr. Blaine, following 
the traditions of the grand old organization in a free State, joined 
with Governor Morrill and others in forming the Republican 
party in the " Pine Tree State." This introduced him to the 
stump in 1856, and gave him his first opportunity to test his qual- 
ities as an orator. They proved as effective as his pen had done 
in the line of journalism. He came to be regarded as a master 
in eloquence and argument. He loved the excitement of the 
campaign, and courted the honors which his oratory won. It 
was evident that the activities of public life accorded better with 
his nature than the tedium of the editorial sanctum. 

# After the heat of the Fremont campaign was over, he persisted 
in his efforts to strengthen the new party by direct and vigorous 
attacks on Buchanan's administration. • An exponent of early 
and stalwart Republicanism, he was elected to the Maine Legis- 
lature in 1858, being then in his twenty-ninth year. He was 
re-elected to the Legislature the three subsequent terms. Two of 
the years he served on the floor of the House. The other two 
(1861, 1862) he occupied the Speaker's chair, where he 
evinced that knowledge of parliamentary forms, and that 
mastery over deliberative bodies which so signalized his 
Speakership of the National House of Representatives. By 
this time he was well on in his political career. His powers as a 
debater, his ability as an organizer, his control of situations, his 
readiness of learning, were established things, as well among 
political friends as enen^ies. In all disputation he was sure of a 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 733 

respectful hearing, and as a campaign orator he had few supe- 
riors. 

ENTERS CONGRESS. — His hold was now complete upon 
the affections of his party and community, and his fame had 
passed the borders of his State. " Blaine of Maine " was a term 
not without significance before his debut in Congress. In 1862 
he was elected to Congress in the Kennebec district by a major- 
ity of 3,422 votes, and thus appeared as a member of the 
Thirty-eighth Congress, which met December 7, 1863. It was a 
time when great issues were pending, and when great men were 
in demand, especially in the Republican ranks. And there were 
great leaders in that and the subsequent war Congresses, equal 
to the mighty measures which pressed for solution. It was not a 
time for party manipulation, but for broad, patriotic statesmanship. 
The central theme was the country, how should it be preserved 
in the midst of armed attack ? Already schooled in the urgent 
measures of the hour, in the plans to raise armies, provide income, 
preserve credit, and insure the triumph of the Constitution and 
Union, were men like Stevens, Schofield, Kelley, Garfield, 
Schenck, Fenton, Windom, Blair, Dawes, Allison, Wilson, Orth, 
Colfax, and Lovejoy, all worthies in debate and parliamentary 
usages. It was no easy matter for a new man to make his mark 
in the midst of these Nestors of legislation. But among them 
all Blaine was early recognized as a man of exceeding quick and 
great parts. Time, and that a very brief one, was only required 
to secure for him full recognition as an invaluable champion of 
the vital legislation the country then demanded. 

His thorough devotion to the Republican cause, his knowl- 
edge of current subjects, his industry in committee work, his 
wonderful grasp and orderly arrangement of details, made him 
a most desirable member of the Committees on the Post-office, 
on Appropriations, on Rules, and on the Military. He was par- 
ticularly fortunate in his affiliations with President Lincoln, who 
drew great comfort from his advice, often sought, and who prized 
his judgment as of the very best quality. Blaine had been one 
of the few original Lincoln men from the East in the Chicago 
Convention of i860, and it is related that in the Illinois canvass 



734 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of 1858, Blaine had prophesied that Douglas would beat Lincoln 
for Senator, but that in i860 Lincoln would beat Douglas for 
President, a prophecy which Mr. Lincoln long carried in his 
pocket. 

With his energy, practical views, and fluency and grace of 
speech, it could not be otherwise than that he should soon 
become conspicuous in debate on the floor. His first elaborate 
speech was on the assumption of the war debts of the States by 
the general government, and the ability of the country to sup- 
press rebellion. It was delivered at a time when the war Dem- 
ocrats were demoralized, and when the anti-war Democrats were 
striving to commit their party to premature and disastrous peace. 
It will be remembered that the latter won in the convention of 
1864 which nominated McClellan, and committed their party to 
" the war is a failure " plank in their platform. So masterly was 
Mr. Blaine's speech regarded, and so clearly did he demonstrate 
the ability of the country to carry the war to a successful issue 
iind pay all the cost as well, that it was heralded as a fortress of 
fact and argument, and fully 200,000 copies of it were circulated 
by the Republicans during the campaign. 

This supremely patriotic effort greatly enlarged his fame 
among the people, and contributed to his rapidly growing im- 
portance in the House. It further clinched his hold on the 
affections of his constituents at home, who re-elected him to the 
Thirty-ninth Congress (1865-67) by a majority of 4,328. They 
subsequently elected him to the Fortieth Congress (1867-69) by 
a majority of 6,591 ; to the Forty-first Congress (1869-71) by a 
majority of 3,346 ; to the Forty-second Congress (1871-73) by a 
majority of 2,320; to the Forty-third Congress (1873-75) ^7 ^ 
majority of 3,568 ; to the Forty-fourth Congress (1875-77) by a 
majority of 2,830; seven consecutive terms. 

By the end of his first term he was a recognized force in dis- 
cussion, an authority in historical and statistical matters, and a 
parliamentarian of great skill and promise. He draughted and 
handled measures with a cleverness which few of the older 
members could excel. But few of the great questions which 
touched the war escaped his attention or comment, and they all 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 735 

tended to bring out his versatility and prove his patriotism. 
The tariff legislation preceding, and incorporated into, the act 
of 1874, and the subsequent amendatory acts passed during his 
official life, always invited his scrutiny and secured his support. 
He was no specialist in tariff matters, had no hobbies to ride, 
and no narrow theories to support, but was a firm believer in 
Hamilton's economic ideas and Clay's "American System." 
Ever deprecating the disastrous change to free trade which fol- 
lowed the sliding scale tariff of 1833, he rejoiced at the return to 
protection under the act of 1861, and has never failed in his 
support of broad gauge protective principles. American labor, 
in all its multiform phases, has found in him its firmest friend 
and most ardent advocate. American manufactures have equally 
found in him, by committee management, by original measure, 
by intelligent and comprehensive advocacy, their most consistent 
and zealous defender. In the Senate (1878) when the thought 
of a Commission to revise the existing tariff laws was first 
broached he opposed the step as premature, and headed it off 
by a resolution to the effect " that any change in our tariff laws 
would derange the business interests of the country and retard 
that return to prosperity for which all should earnestly co- 
operate ; that it should be the fixed policy of the government to 
so maintain our tariff for revenue as to afford adequate pro- 
tection to American labor." 

His very latest words — words written since his retiracy from 
public life — on this subject are : 

" The assailants of protection apparently overlook the fact that excessive pro- 
duction is due, both in England and America, to causes beyond the operation of 
duties either high or low^. No cause is more potent than the prodigious capacity of 
machinery set in motion by the agency of steam. It is asserted by an intelligent 
economist that, if performed by hand^ the work done by machinery in Great Britain 
would require the labor of 700,000,000 of men — a far larger number of adults than 
inhabit the globe. It is not strange that with this vast enginery, the power to pro- 
duce has a constant tendency to outrun the power to consume. Protectionists find 
in this a conclusive argument against surrendering the domestic market of the United 
States to the control of British capitalists, whose power of production has no apparent 
limit. When the harmonious adjustment of international trade shall ultimately be 
established by 'the Parliament of Man' in 'the Federation of the World,' the 
power of production and the power of consumption will properly balance each 



736 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

other; but in traversing the long road and enduring the painful process by which 
that end shall be reached, the proteciionist claims that his theory of revenue preserves 
the newer nation from being devoured by the older, and offers to human labor a 
shield against the exactions of capital." 

Whatever measures he favored, he supported with a depth of 
conviction and a warmth of eloquence which argued sincerity as 
well as ability. What he did not favor, he opposed with manly 
fervor and persistency which won the plaudit of friend and foe 
alike. There was no quixotism about his opposition. He 
sought the bottom facts and solid merits of every question, and 
was content to rest his case on these. In the very speech above 
mentioned, he was compelled to antagonize a large and respect- 
able sentiment in his party who feared that the legal-tender 
notes would not be taken without a compulsory clause in the 
bill. With his greater faith in the continued loyalty of the 
masses, and his graphic pictures of our resources, soon to be 
imbued with new life and vigor by the magic kiss of the angel 
of peace, he was willing to trust the future. The currency was 
sounder without this proposed compulsorj' clause. It was 
subject to mutations, to be sure, but the country had to wait 
only till 1875 for a resumption bill, and till 1879 for actual re- 
sumption, and a vindication of Mr. Blaine's logic. Speaking of 
the position Mr. Blaine took in this speech and of his method 
of handling the subject, Thaddeus Stevens said, " Blaine, of 
Maine, has shown as great aptitude and ability for the higher 
walks of public life as any man that has come to Congress 
during his period of service." 

In December, 1867, he crossed swords with Mr. Pendleton, 
then an advocate of greenback inflation as a remedy for our 
financial troubles. Here he foreshadowed resumption, still a 
great many years off. Full of faith in the currency already 
established, and fuller of love for the credit of his country, he 
antagonized the inflation movement with all his native energy 
and with a skill in oratory that had ripened apace. Said he, 
" The remedy for our financial troubles will not be found in a 
superabundance of depreciated currency. It lies in the opposite 
direction, and the sooner the nation finds itself on a specie basis 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 737 

the sooner will the public treasury be freed from embarrassment 
and private business be relieved from discouragement. Instead 
therefore of entering upon a reckless and boundless issue of 
legal tenders, with their constant depreciation, if not destruction, 
of value, let us set resolutely to work and make those already 
in circulation equal to so many gold dollars." This was the be- 
ginning of that resolute Republican diplomacy which saved the 
credit of the government, and in after years resulted in a green- 
back as good as gold. Mr. Blaine may be called the father of 
specie resumption. 

In January, 1868, he introduced his celebrated resolution re- 
lating to Congressional representation, which was referred to the 
Committee on Reconstruction. It embodied the principles then 
incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, 
which became a part of the organic law in July, 1868. In July, 
1868, he further distinguished himself and rounded out his 
financial record by an elaborate and able speech against taxing 
government bonds. This taxation scheme was one of the many 
ingenious Democratic attacks upon our currency system, and it 
required just such powers of penetration, keenness of analysis, 
incisiveness of statement and knowledge of finance, as Mr. Blaine 
possessed to show it up in its true light. 

By this time Mr. Blaine was fully established as among the 
ablest leaders on the floor of the House. He was thoroughly 
acquainted with men, his field of duty, and the measures which 
dominated reconstruction and vitally concerned the national 
credit, the currency of the country, and its commercial welfare. 
His republicanism was of the most pronounced type — stalwart 
to the core. He was trusted in the most confidential counsels 
of the party, and looked to as a wise adviser, able organizer and 
invincible advocate. His education as Speaker of the Maine 
House of Representatives, which had all along availed him 
much, came to his rescue when in search of the honors of 
Speaker of the National House. His knowledge of the manual, 
his recollection of names, his quickness of perception, his ability 
to expedite business, his fairness and firmness, his wonderful 
control of self and of exciting situations, his magnetic qualities 
47 



738 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of leadership, all combined to make his candidacy for the 
Speakership desirable and sure. He was therefore nominated 
for this important position by acclamation in the Republican 
caucus of the Forty-first Congress at its extra session, March 4, 
1869, and was elected by 136 votes as against 57 for Mr. Kerr. 
So efficient did he prove in this difficult position that he was re- 
elected, by the unanimous vote of his party, in the Forty-second 
and Forty-third Congresses. k 

Ordinarily the brilliant qualities of the member on the floor 
are obscured by elevation to the Speakership. His identity with 
public measures is apt to be somewhat lost. But Mr. Blaine's 
interest in the political measures he had been identified with so 
long and honorably did not flag. He did what few men are 
capable of, to wit, win a reputation as a fair and capable parlia- 
mentarian, which, if possible, added to the prestige he had 
achieved on the floor. There really seemed to be no number 
to the many sides of his qualifications and no bottom to his re- 
sources. Emergencies arose thick and fast in those days of 
momentous questions and fierce party clashes, but he preserved 
a dignity worthy his high position and met new situations with 
perfect equipoise. There was that about his ministration which 
drew the favor of both parties, and proved him a man not only 
of striking aptitude but remarkable for his ability to control the 
passions of an assembly and direct its procedure. It is these 
same qualities in him which have passed beyond the limits of 
Congress and away out to the country, and have taught his ad- 
mirers to look on him as a natural leader of men and as a safe 
controlling spirit whether in hours of calm or passion. Says a 
writer, " In the position of Speaker of the House, his quickness 
of perception, decision of manner, thorough knowledge of parlia- 
mentary lav/ and usages, and impartial and judicial mind, added 
to his clear voice and impressive presence, made him a truly 
great presiding officer." 

With the loss of a Republican majority in the Forty-fourth 
Congress, and the election of Mr. Kerr (Democrat) as Speaker, 
Mr. Blaine returned to the floor. But he did not return to take 
any second place among the many distinguished members of his 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 739 

— then a minority — party. He was the recognized leader of 
the Republican forces, and such a leadership has never been 
paralleled. It was a time when the " Rebel Brigadiers," flushed 
with their return to power, angry at everything they found on 
the statute books, and determined to recover by legislation what 
they had lost by war, were pressing their eagerly sought, though 
long postponed, opportunity to the uttermost. The situation 
called for all his genius and boldness in attack, all his versatility 
in discussion, all his self-possession in the midst of crisis, all his 
parliamentary wisdom in handling favored measures or baffling 
opposition. Through his adroit management and unmatched 
vigor he compelled a respect for the minority which made it a 
complete check on the opposition, and as potent in shaping 
political measures as if it had enjoyed majority numbers. Hith- 
erto his career had developed the qualities of statesmanship 
necessary to success in shaping and advocating the measures 
of a majority. Men who are great in offensive emergencies 
often weaken and fail when put on the defensive. But hopeful- 
ness and the heroic so abounded in Mr. Blaine's nature that he 
was, if anything, stronger under the enemy's fire than when he 
had full command of the field. His vigilance was quickened, 
his aggressiveness showed at its best. Opposition seemed to 
present to him his greatest occasion for crushing argument, 
withering rebuke, or splendid rhetorical flight. It gave full play 
to. those powers of extemporization which, as he has said him- 
self, he never hoped to equal, in vividness, grace or vigor, with 
his pen. To thought, to language, to gesture, to emotion, he 
added the magnetism of a striking presence, the thrill of burn- 
ing earnestness, the inspiring consciousness of rectitude. 

IN THE SENATE.— On the resignation of Lot M. Morrill 
from the Senate to take the place of Secretary of the Treasury 
in Grant's Cabinet, Mr. Blaine was appointed by the Governor 
of Maine, July lo, 1876, Senator in his place. He was, on the 
meeting of the Legislature, elected to fill Mr. Morrill's unex- 
pired term, which ended March 3, 1877. At the opening of 
the Forty-fourth Congress, Dec. 4, 1876, he took his seat in the 
Senate Chamber. In putting off the honors of a Congressional 



740 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

District to accept those of an entire State, he bade farewell to 
his immediate constituents in the following letter : 

" Beginning with 1862 you have by continuous elections sent me as your repre- 
sentative to the Congress of the United States. For such marked confidence I have 
endeavored to return the most zealous and devoted service in my power, and it is 
certainly not without a feeling of pain that I now surrender a trust by which I have 
always felt so signally honored. It has been my boast in public and in private that 
no man on the floor of Congress ever represented a constituency more distinguished 
for intelligence, for patriotism, for public and personal virtue. The cordial support 
you have so uniformly given me through these fourteen eventful years is the chief 
honor of my life. In closing the intiiuate relations I have so long held with the 
people of this district it is a great satisfaction to me to know that with returning 
health I shall enter upon a field of duty in which I can still serve them in common 
with the larger constituency of which they form a part." 

The old Kennebec journal, which had witnessed his entrance 
into editorial life, and whose pages had often been made to glow 
with his illuminating pen, returned as an answer from his con- 
stituents and the people of the entire State the following : 

*' Fourteen years ago, standing in the Convention at which he was first nominated, 
Mr. Blaine pledged himself to use his best services for the district, and to support 
to the best of his ability the policy of Abraham Lincoln to subdue the rebellion, 
and then 'and there expressed plainly the idea that slavery must and ought to be 
abolished to save the Union. That he has kept his pledge faithfully his constituents 
know and feel, and the records of Congress attest. To this district his abilities were 
freely given, and as he rose in honor in the House and in the public estimation he 
reflected honor and gave strength to the constituency that supported him. Every 
step he made in advance was a gain for them. It was a grand thing for this dis,trict 
to have as its Representative in Congress for six years the Speaker of the House, 
filling the place next in importance to that of President of the United States, with 
matchless ability. It was a grander thing when he took the lead of the minority in 
the House last December, routed the Democratic majority, and drove back in dis- 
may the ex-Confederates who were intending and expecting through the advantage 
they had already gained to grasp the supreme power in the nation and wield it in 
the interest of the cause of secession and rebellion revived. For what he has done 
as their Representative in Congress, never will this Third District of Maine forget to 
honor the name of James G. Blaine. It will live in the hearts of this people even 
as the name of Henry Clay is still loved by the people of his old district in Ken- 
tucky." 

Mr. Blaine's great prominence in public affairs, his identity 
and familiarity with leading political, financial and industrial 
questions, the conspicuous and trusted position he occupied in 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 741 

his party, made his transfer from the House to the Senate as 
easy as it was natural. In this body of men of greater age and 
dignity, and amid discussions supposably graver, more deliberate 
and more learned than those of the House, he was from the first 
a peer. Contrary to the traditions which gjive a monopoly of 
the debates to the older members, he often came forward with 
his own original and electric views, to which as respectful a 
hearing was accorded as if he had been one of the oldest and 
most privileged members. 

He was subsequently elected his own successor in the Senate 
for the term beginning March 4, 1877, and ending March 3, 
1883. In the second session of the Forty-fourth Congress (met 
Dec. 4, 1 876) the matter of most urgent moment was the creation 
of the Electoral Commission. He took strong ground against 
the right of Congress to endow the proposed Commission with 
power to determine the dispute, and insisted on due and orderly 
procedure under the law, which as popularly construed gave the 
President of the Senate the right to open and announce the re- 
turns. In the end the Commission did just what he claimed the 
Speaker of the Senate should have done, viz., decide the validity 
of the vote according to returns as certified by the lawful authori- 
ties in each State. The measure creating the Commission did 
not receive his vote. 

In an elaborate speech in the Senate upon the necessity of 
protecting American labor from foreign competition, and espe- 
cially that competition it was then forced to meet on the Pacific 
coast in the shape of Chinese immigrants, who came under con- 
tract and with no design to become citizens, he foreshadowed 
what afterwards became the Anti-Chinese law. This law was 
enacted by the Forty-fifth Congress (met Dec. 2, 1878) during 
its second session and received a veto by President Hayes. To 
show what a sentiment Mr. Blaine had awakened in its favor, 
and how triumphant his advocacy of it had been, it was passed 
over the President's veto, on Feb. 22, 1879, ^^^ ^^.s since (1882) 
been amended so as to make it still more effective. 

We have already learned enough of his financial record to 
anticipate his position on that wonderful inflation manoeuvre 



742 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

which became known as the " Bland Silver Bill," and which has 
resulted in piling up millions of useless dollars in the Treasury- 
vaults. This bill he opposed in a vigorous speech, and espe- 
cially that part of it which proposed to legalize a dishonest dollar. 
The matters of a S(Mnd currency, an appreciating national credit, 
and specie resumption as soon as time would permit, constantly 
invoked his vigilance, and he never let an opportunity pass to 
drive home his arguments in favor of solid money and an honor- 
able financial policy. 

The speeches which were best calculated to earn for him a 
reputation among the forensic athletes and sage juris-consults 
of the Senate were those delivered in connection with the dis- 
tribution of the Genevan award. They were conspicuous for their 
equitable views, learned citations, and apt presentation of thoughts 
and facts. But the effort which showed at their best the native 
powers of Mr. Blaine — all his caustic sarcasm, superb wit, facility 
of expression, earnest demeanor, varied resources, and convinc- 
ing logic — was that on the " false issues raised by the Democratic 
party," delivered in the Senate on April 14, 1879. The Demo- 
crats were endeavoring to prevent the operation of the law which 
required the President to keep the peace at the polls during gen- 
eral elections, by withholding any and all appropriations for the 
army unless he would not use it to keep such peace. They 
made no army appropriation at all, and thus left the army with- 
out pay. This necessitated an extra session, during which they 
relented, and fell in with the terms of the law. It was against 
this purpose of starving the President into support of their 
measure that Mr. Blaine spoke. He denounced the impression, 
created by the Democrats, that there was an attempt to control 
elections by the bayonet, as injurious to the country, and the 
issue they had raised as false. 



"And," he said, ** I am going to prove it. In all the United States, east of 
Omaha, a magnificent area including at least forty-one million of our forty-five 
million people, how many troops of the United States are there to-day ? Would 
any Senator on the opposite side like to guess ? There are just two thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-seven. A frontier of eight thousand miles, either bordering on 
the ocean or on foreign territory, is guarded by these troops. Within this domain 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 743 

forty-five fortifications and eleven arsenals are armed and protected by them. There 
are sixty troops to every million people. And the entire South has eleven hundred 
and five soldiers to intimidate, overrun, oppress, and destroy the liberties of fifteen 
million people. That is not quite one soldier to each county. Distributed territo- 
rially, there would be one for every seven hundred square miles of territory ; and 
here the Senator from Delaware should be reminded that the quota for his State 
would be three — * one ragged sergeant and two abreast,' as the song has it. That 
is the force ready to destroy the liberties of Delaware." 

And again : 

•' I call it the audacity of revolution for any Senator or Representative, or any 
ca.ucus of Senators or Representatives, to get together and say, * We will have this 
legislation or we will stop the great departments of government. That is revolu- 
tionary. But I think it is a revolution that will not go round. I think it is a revo- 
lution whose wheel will not turn. But it is a revolution, if persisted in. If it is 

not persisted in, it will have to be backed out of with ignominy All the war 

measures of Abraham Lincoln are to be M'iped out, say leading Democrats ! The 
Bourbons of France busied themselves after the restoration in removing every trace 
of Napoleon's power and grandeur by chiseling the ' N ' from the monuments raised 
to perpetuate his glory, but the dead man's hand from St. Helena reached out and 
destroyed them in their pride and folly. And I tell the Senators on the other side — • 
I tell the Democratic party North and South ; South in the lead, the North follow- 
ing — that the slow, unmoving finger of scorn, from the tomb of the martyred Presi- 
dent on the prairies of Illinois, will wither and destroy them. Though dead, he 
speaketh." 

In the question of the restoration of the American carrying 
trade upon the seas, and the re-estabHshment of our merchant 
marine, a question now pressing for early solution, Mr. Blaine 
has always taken a deep interest, and his often expressed 
opinions have attracted much attention. One of his speeches 
on this subject, delivered at a dinner given by the New York 
Chamber of Commerce, was regarded with the highest appreci- 
ation and accepted as a full and masterly presentation of the 
question. On all these intricate and much mooted industrial 
and commercial questions, he is a thorough American, an ener- 
getic country-builder, a firm believer in absolute national inde- 
pendence, a vivid draughtsman of that destiny which our com- 
mercial situation, internal resources, character of our people, and 
the genius of our institutions, warrant and assure. 

Lest it may prove tedious to show his thoughts on this pressing 
subject by extracts from his speeches, we use the summary of his 



744 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

views as given in Lieutenant Kelly's (United States Navy) prize 
essay on " Our Merchant Marine," read before the United States 
Naval Institute at Annapolis in 1 882. In speaking of the various 
plans for improving the Merchant Marine, he says : 

" Mr. Blaine would solve the problem by bounties, for this purpose enacting a 
general law that would ignore individuals and enforce a policy. His scheme pro- 
vides that any man or company of men who will build, in an American yard, with 
American material, by American mechanics, a steamship of 3,000 tons, and sail her 
from any port in the United States to any foreign port, he or they shall receive for 
a monthly line, a mail allowance of $2^ per mile per annum for the sailing distance 
between the two ports ; for a semi-monthly line, $45 per mile ; for a weekly line, 
$75 per mile. Should the steamer exceed 3,000 tons, a proportionate advance on 
these rates. Should it fall below 3,000 tons a proportionate reduction. Other 
reformers propose to give a bounty directly to the ship-builder, so as to make the 
price of an American vessel the same as that of a foreign bought, but presumably 
cheaper, ship. Mr. Blaine's plan represents the growing Republican view, but the 
actual party views can only be ascertained when the subject comes up for considera- 
tion." 

While yet in the Senate, the country had a demonstration of 
his coolness and sagacity as a party leader in circumventing the 
Democratic plot to steal the State government of Maine in 1879. 
With every advantage of party machinery, they began the high- 
handed operation of counting out the legally elected Republican 
members of the Legislature. The outrage was so flagrant that 
the Republicans saw no resort but open, armed resistance. 
Blaine counseled peace, and relied on the ability of his friends, 
who had nothing but right on their side, to arouse a public sen- 
timent by exposure of the plot. This exposure came with 
telling effect. It threw the enemy into confusion, and entangled 
them in a web of contradictions from which there was no rescue 
except by appeal to the Supreme Court. The final arbitrament 
gave the Republicans control of the Halls of Legislation and 
assured them their status and their rights. Thus a situation 
provocative of blood and dangerous to civil and political rights 
was turned into one of peace and safety, by his judicious man- 
agement. As completing a history in the Senate which, though 
brief, is full of eloquent and instructive chapters, allusion must 
be made to his stand in favor of the rights of the colored voters 
in the South, and the propriety of limiting Southern representa- 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 745 

tion in Congress until a free ballot was recognized. Though 
his position was a radical one, he sustained it with arguments 
that have never been refuted. Considering the fact that Sum- 
ner's Civil Rights Bill has been declared unconstitutional, it 
would seem that the field is now open for just such a method 
of securing the colored people of the South their rights as he 
then proposed. Reference must also be made to his magnificent 
eulogy in the Senate, January, 1880, on Senator Chandler. That 
effort, full of learning and pathos, showed that within Mr. Blaine's 
bosom was a heart alive to the keenest sympathies. The great, 
strong, aggressive man became, in an hour of grief, like the 
tender woman or the little child. For fitness to the occasion, 
for analysis of character, for warmth of tribute, there was 
nothing like it born of the solemn occasion in the Senate 
chamber. 

A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.— In the campaign of 
1876 Mr. Blaine was an aspirant for Presidential honors. He 
was in the field as a candidate with numerous others, all dis- 
tinguished for their talents and public service. He was at the 
head of his own forces, which were widely representative, justly 
enthusiastic, and numerically stronger than those of any other 
candidate. Hitherto the unit rule had prevailed in Republican 
Conventions ; that is, a State voted the sentiment of a majority 
of its delegates. The practice had long been considered a 
grievance. The decision of the chairman was against it and in 
favor of each delegate voting his individual choice. On an 
appeal to the convention this decision was sustained. The 
movement was said to have been in the interest of Mr. Blaine, 
who had delegates here and there in several States, whose votes 
he would have otherwise lost. However it may have been, the 
step was a decided reform, one calculated to carry representation 
down closer to the masses, and to cause each candidate to stand 
more clearly on his own merits. It was well that Mr. Blaine's 
strength was such as to insure the advanced step. 

The convention met at Cincinnati on June 14, 1876. The 
matchless speech of IngersoU placing James G. Blaine in nomina- 
tion has become a political classic. In it he said : 



746 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

** The Republicans of the United States demand as a leader in this great con- 
test of 1876, a man of intelligence, of integrity, of well-known and approved 
political opinions. They demand a reformer after as well as before the election. 
They demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense — a man of superb 
moral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs, with the 
wants of the people, with the requirements of the hour and the demands of the 
future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this 
government to the other governments of the world. They demand a man well 
versed in the powers, duties and prerogatives of each and every department of this 
government, who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States ; 
who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the pros- 
perity of the people, and that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem 
a single dollar ; who knows enough to know that all money must be made, not by 
law, but by labor, and that the people have the industry to make the money and the 
honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. 

" The Republicans demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption 
must come together; that when they come, they will come hand-in-hand through 
the golden harvest fields, by the whirling spindles and turning wheels, past the 
open furnace doors, by the flaming forges, by the chimneys filled^ with eager fires 
— greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil. They demand a man who 
knows that this government should protect its citizens, who believes in the eternal 
divorcement of church and State, whose political reputation is spotless as a star. 
The man who has in full, heaped, and rounded measure all these splendid qualifi- 
cations is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party — ^James G. 
Blaine, 

" Our country, crowned with the vast and marvellous achievements of its first 
century, asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of the future ; a man who 
has the audacity of genius ; who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience 
and brain beneath the flag ; . . . . who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers 
won upon the field ; who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander ; 
who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideou* face of rebellion ; who 
like an intellectual athlete has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all 
comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. Like an armed warrior, like a 
Plumed Knight* James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Con- 
gress, and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the 
defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor." 

The convention contest can be shown best by figures : 

Candidates. Ballots. 

1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. 6th. 7th. 

Blaine 285 296 292 293 287 308 351 

Conkling II3 II4 I2I 126 II4 III 21 

Bristow 99 93 90 84 82 81 

Morton 124 120 113 108 95 85 

* The title of " Plumed Knight " has adhered to him ever since. 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 747 

Candidates. * Ballots. 

1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. • 6th. 7th. 

Hayes 61 64 67 68 102 113 384 

Hartranft 58 63 68 71 69 50 

Jewell II 

Washburne I i 3 3 4 

Wheeler 3 3 2 2 2 2 ... 

The country felt a deep sense of disappointment at Mr. 
Blaine's defeat. He, however, did not seem to share it, but 
entered the campaign as heartily as if he had been at the head 
of the ticket. 

CONVENTION OF 1880.— The Republican National Con- 
vention met at Chicago, June 5, 1880. There was much excite- 
ment in the party respecting the candidacy of General Grant for 
a third — but not consecutive — term. James G. Blaine was 
again a candidate, with a numerous and well-marshalled support. 
He was placed in nomination by James F. Joy, of Michigan, in 
an eloquent speech in which he said : 

** During the dark hours of war and the troublous times of reconstruction there 
was one, always true, brave and eloquent, whose reputation grew and towered, till 
his name stood high before the country, and became a household word familiar in 
every corner of the land and looked up to from all quarters. That name was the 
name of James G. Blaine. When the nomination of General Grant was made all 
eyes in the northern section of the country were turned on James G. Blaine. He 
canvassed the country for that candidate, so that the people of the North 
and great West became familiar with him. He had about him that wonderful 
power of attracting men which another great man — Henry Clay — possessed in an 
equally eminent degree. On the second nomination of Grant he again traversed 
the country exercising his eloquence and power. A candidate at Cincinnati^ and 
disappointed in the nomination, he again buckled on his harness and traversed the 
country, fighting manfully, gloriously, vigorously till the battle was won." 

This speech was ably seconded by Mr. Pixley of California, 
and Senator Frye of Maine. The contest once opened, lasted 
three days, and ranged through thirty-six ballots, the Blaine 
forces holding tenaciously, until the last ballot, when his and 
those of Sherman broke and went to Garfield. The first six 
ballots showed as follows : 

1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. 6th. 

Grant 304 305 305 305 305 305 

Blaine 284 282 282 281 281 281 

Sherman 93 94 93 '95 95 95 



748 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. 6th, 

Edmunds 34 32 32 32 32 31 

Washburne 30 32 31 31 31 31 

Windom lo 10 10 10 10 10 

Garfield I I i 2 2 

Harrison I 

Blaine's vote never rose above 285, which it reached on the 
13th ballot. Grant's settled down to the historic 306, where it 
remained. The last ballot stood : 

Whole number of votes 755 

Necessary to a choice 378 

Grant 306 

Blaine 42 

Sherman 3 

Washburne 5 

Garfield 399 

Though disappointed a second time he entered the campaign, 
as before, and devoted his time and energy to the success of the 
Republican ticket and cause. His own State had been lost in 
September through a coalition movement. His first efforts were 
to redeem it. This done by a series of thrilling speeches at 
enthusiastic meetings, he added to the general interest and 
strength of the campaign whenever and wherever called upon to 
do so. 

SECRETARY OF 57^ T^.— President Garfield had the op- 
portunity and desire to give the country a strong and pure ad- 
ministration. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose 
Mr. Blaine as his Secretary of State. It was natural also as an 
evidence of gratitude for the favor extended to him by Mr. 
Blaine at Chicago, and during the campaign, whose darkest 
hours he relieved by pushing the free trade columns to the wall, 
and moreover as an opportunity for rounding out and giving 
equilibrium to his cabinet. Blaine was pronounced in his Repub- 
licanism. He typed the school of the great majority and victory, 
of all that was affirmative in political administration and vital to 
further party supremacy. There would be elements to conciliate 
by cabinet representations. There were places for such repre- 
sentatives, and they found them. But the post of highest honor 
and most confidential relationship fell to the proper person, 
Blaine, the endeared friend, the political brother, the facile 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 749 

princeps among Republican leaders and statesmen, arew, amid 
the approval of his countrymen, the honored prize of premier. 

At a private conference held at Washington, Nov. 26, 1880, 
President-elect Garfield tendered the State Department to Mr. 
Blaine. When he had recovered from his surprise he replied, 
" General, I was hardly prepared for this tender on your part. 
I do not know how to make answer. I would like some time 
for reflection and consultation, and in the meantime I will advise 
you." To the friends whom he consulted, and who universally 
advised him to accept, he had but one reply, " If the sentiment 
of the country indorses the selection I will accept, otherwise 
not." PubHcation of the offer drew a unanimous sentiment in its 
favor. His letter of acceptance bore date Dec. 20, 1880. In it 
he said : 

" In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all that I can hope to be, 
freely and joyfully, to your service. You need no pledge of my loyalty in heart 
and in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove true both to the great trust 
you confide to me and to your own personal and political fortunes in the present and 
in the future. Your administration must be made brilliantly successful and strong 
in the confidence and pride of the people, not at all directing its energies for re- 
election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events and by the imperious 
necessities of the situation. 

" I accept it as one of the happiest circumstances connected with this affair that 
in allying my political fortunes with yours — or rather for the time merging mine in 
yours — my heart goes with my head, and that I carry to you not only political sup- 
port but personal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat remark- 
able that two men of the same age, entering Congress at the same time, influenced 
by the same aims and cherishing the same ambitions, should never, for a single 
moment in eighteen years of close intimacy, have had a misunderstanding or a cool- 
ness, and that our friendship has steadily grown with our growth and strengthened 
with our strength. 

" It is this fact which has led me to the conclusion embodied in this letter ; for 
however much, my dear Garfield, I might admire you as a statesman, I would 
•not enter your cabinet if I did not believe in you as a man and love you as a 
friend." 

This acceptance rendered resignation of his seat in the Senate 
necessary. It took effect March 3, 1 881, and on March 5 he 
began his diplomatic career in the Garfield cabinet. Would the 
" prince of parliamentarians," the eloquent leader on the floor 
of both Houses, the magnetic campaign spokesman, be equal to 



750 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the task of sedate, sagacious diplomacy ? He never had failed, 
why should he now ? He had towered above every place, as 
the pine tree above its rock-bound roots, why should he not 
above this ? Garfield was confident, so was the country. His 
past had given every earnest of a career as diplomatist, which 
should establish the administration in the confidence of the 
masses, honor the Republic, and add new and deserved lustre to 
his own reputation. The situation was pregnant with the 
grandest possibilities, and aglow with richly hued promises. 
Assassination saddened, darkened, deadened all. 

Yet there was enough foreshadowed to establish the fact that 
Mr. Blaine was in the midst of a congenial mission. His ripe- 
ness of statesmanship was serving him a stead denied, or limited, 
by lesser places. Most greatness is content with itself, and, 
therefore, stationary. His was abreast of the hour. The coun- 
try had life, had growth ; both healthy. It had, moreover, 
commanding size, population and resource. But as to outside 
progress and other countries, it was pillowed and asleep on 
antique policies, and was repeating in its diplomatic history the 
fable of the hare and the tortoise. France, and for that matter 
all Europe, was pushing a ship canal through the Isthmus of 
Panama. The crude Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 was all this 
Republic had to rest a commercial right upon, and that treaty 
prevented the maintenance of any such right by force of arms, 
and except by courtesy. As Mr. Blaine put it, ** The treaty 
commands this government not to use a single regiment of 
troops to protect its interests in connection with the inter- 
oceanic canal, but to surrender the transit to the guardianship 
and control of the British navy." In other words the free, pop- 
ulous, rich, enlightened United States was sitting as idly and 
impotently as Egypt sat on her desert seat while France drove a 
water-way by her very doors, to be bought up by British money 
and controlled by British guns. 

In Secretary Blaine's instructions to Mr. James Russell Low- 
ell, Minister to England, is the following summary of the 
changes in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 necessary to meet 
the views of the United States government ; 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 751 

"First. Every part of the treaty which forbids the United States fortifying 
the canal and holding the political control of it in conjunction with the country in 
which it is located, to be cancelled. 

"Second. Every part of the treaty in which Great Britain and the United States 
agree to make no acquisition of territory in Central America to remain in full force." 

The admirable and forcible chain of reasoning by which Mr. 
Blaine led to these conclusions forced the English newspapers to 
admit that he had made out a good case upon British precedents, 
and that the right of the United States to control the Panama 
Canal was stronger and the necessity of such control greater 
than the right and necessity of England to control the Suez 
Canal. 

Mr. Blaine's views on the Panama Canal question were made 
public as early as June 6, 1881. When the matter became the 
subject of general discussion Mr. Curtis said editorially in Har- 
per's Weekly, of November 5, 1881 : 

" The letter (Mr. Blaine's, June 6) states with admirable frankness and firmness 
the traditional and reasonable position of this country, and it will be universally 
susjained. . . . The letter is a temperate and dignified document, stating our 
position with blended spirit and courtesy and decision. It is capitally adapted to 
meet any such proposition as a joint European protectorate had it been advanced. 
But whether the project was merely a tentative rumor, or a design seriously enter- 
tained, the letter haS sufficed to arrest it, and it is another illustration of the skill 
and ability with which Mr. Blaine has managed the department confided to him. 
He has what may be called the American instinct, an essential quality in our For- 
eign Secretary, yet restrained in its official expression by an equally American tact 
and good sense." 

The same journal, speaking of the foreign policy of the 
administration, in its issue of June 4, 1881, said: 

" Secretary Blaine's prompt and energetic action in defense of naturalized citizens 
and of a threatened hostile commercial policy in Europe towards certain American 
exports showed admirable vigilance." 

People thought Mr. Blaine was mooting some new thing when 
he asked that England should accede to a newer and more Amer- 
ican construction of this treaty. He was but applying the old 
and revered " Monroe Doctrine " to a situation which warranted 
it. When John Q. Adams reiterated that doctrine in 1826, and 
proposed a " Congress of American States " for the purpose of 
agreeing on an American policy which all could defend, he was 



752 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

moving, with the emergency sixty years away, on the exact line 
of Mr. Blaine's diplomacy, with the emergency present. 

And so with the Chili- Peruvian affair. The nitre-bed country 
was the cow of the familiar picture. Peru was pulling at the 
horns ; Chili at the tail. England was sitting at the udder com- 
placently extracting the milk. South American trade is out of 
our possession; South American interests beyond our advice 
and control. So are those of all American powers — except our 
own — in both North and South America. This would not mat- 
ter if they were not wholly, and to our great shame and detri- 
ment, under the influence of foreign nations. Mr. Blaine simply 
offered the good offices of the United States to Chili and Peru 
for the establishment of peace. He could do nothing more. 
Our government had not been in the habit of doing that much. 
He did not wish to do less, for he proposed to follow his offer 
with an invitation to all the governments of both Americas to 
meet in a " Peace Congress " to do just what John Q.Adams 
thought ought to be done, and what Henry Clay proposed a few 
years afterwards. Mr. Blaine has described the Congress as 

"An important and impressive step on the part of the United States toward 
closer relationship with our Continental neighbors. In no event could harm 
have resulted in the assembling of the Peace Congress. Failure was next to 
impossible. Success might be regarded as certain. The subject to be dis- 
cussed was peace, and how it can be permanently preserved in North and 
South America. The labors of the Congress would have probably ended in 
a well-digested system of arbitration, under which all troubles between Amer- 
ican States could be quickly, effectually and satisfactorily adjusted. Such a 
consummation would have been worth a great struggle and a great sacrifice. It 
could have been reached without any struggle and would have involved no sacrifice. 
It was within our grasp. It was ours for the asking. It would have been a signal 
victory of philanthropy over the selfishness of human ambition; a complete 
triumph of Christian principles as applied to the affairs of nations. It would have 
reflected enduring honor on our new country, and would have imparted a new 
spirit and a new brotherhood to all America. Nor would its influence beyond the 
sea have been small. The example of seventeen independent nations solemnly 
agreeing to abolish the arbitrament of the sword, and to settle every dispute by 
peaceful methods of adjudication, would have exerted an influence to the utmost 
confines of civilization, and upon the generations of men yet to come." 

These were the leading features of a diplomacy which, in the 
course of events, would have developed others equally worthy 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 753 

the attention of the country. Their aim was to enlarge our im- 
portance among the nations of the world, establish a brother- 
hood of American peoples and governments, and give the West- 
ern Continent a status in commerce, industry, religion, the arts 
and sciences equal to that enjoyed by the Eastern. 

They needed only the elaboration which time would have 
given to reconcile them to the country and make them exceed- 
ingly popular. That there was danger in them was the sug- 
gestion of either enmity or ignorance. He who had the ability 
to propose would have had the power to control. Besides, as 
we have just seen in his own statement, the gist and kernel of 
every feature was universal peace, and no more cruel, bloody 
arbitraments by the sword. Their only defect seems to have 
been that they jostled all the other statesnjen out of a sound 
sleep and occasioned a decided humph of dissatisfaction at the 
interruption of their prosaic eighteenth century dreams. 

As to what the Southern policy of the Administration would 
have been, we can only judge it by the influence Mr. Blaine 
might have exerted in shaping it. Thus judged, it would have 
been to cultivate cordial relations between the different sections 
of the country, and, by thus promoting the flow southward of 
Northern capital, to assist the development of the Southern 
States. Mr. Blaine had great faith in the future of the South. 
On one occasion he said : 

" In reconstructing the South we made the same mistake the British government 
is making with the Irish. If we had made a government donation of $50,000,000 
for the purpose of constructing a railway from Charleston to the Southern end of 
California, and spent every dollar of it between Charleston and the Mississippi River 
in the first three years following the war, the problem of reconstruction would have 
solved itself; the people would have had business interests, instead of politics, to 
occupy their attention. I believe that within ten years the material increase in the 
Southern States, east of the Mississippi, will equal, if it does not surpass, that of the 
Northwestern States, west of the Mississippi." 

And so as to Civil Service Reform, if any other pledge for its 
advancement were needed than that found in the Republican 
platform and Garfield's inaugural. Said a distinguished Senator, 
a member of the Civil Service Committee then considering the 
Civil Service Act of 1883 : "I talked with Mr. Blaine upon the 
48 



754 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

subject in 1882, at a time when few Senators favored the act we 
now enjoy, and to my gratification he expressed himself in the 
strongest terms in favor of a law regulating the appointments to 
office. Mr. Blaine was then far in advance of the great majority 
of Republican Senators as to this reform, and it is a fact that I 
think the country ought to know." 

In speaking of this reform before an audience in Winterport, 
Maine, in 1882, he gave his views fully on life-tenure in office, 
and after declaring that it was always better to hold on to good 
administrative officers, even if it resulted in a life-tenure, he still 
thought that there ought to be definite terms. As to this his 
language was : 

" There nre many reforms which I should be glad to see, and which I have for 
many years believed in. I should be glad to see every Federal officer, however 
honorable, appointed for a specific period, during which he could not be removed 
except for cause, which cause should be specified, proved, and made matter of 
record. I should be glad also to see the tenure of all subordinate officers made 
longer at least than a Presidential term, so that the incoming of a new administra- 
tion should not be harassed, annoyed, crippled and injured by the distribution of 
offices. Seven years would be a good length of term, and would effect the desired 
end. It would break joints with the Presidential term, and would avoid the evil 
of which I have spoken." 

THE SAD END. — On the morning of Saturday, July 2, 
President Garfield was to start from Washington by the morning 
limited express for New York, en route for New England and a 
reunion with his old college mates at the Williams College Com- 
mencement. His Secretary of State accompanied him to the 
train, and has recorded the great, almost boyish, delight with 
which the President anticipated his holiday — a state of mind in 
which, it may well be believed, Mr. Blaine joyously sympathized. 
They entered the waiting-room at the station, and a moment 
later Guiteau's revolver had done its work. The country still 
vividly remembers the devotion with which the head of the 
Cabinet watched at the President's bedside; the calm dignity 
with which, during those long weeks of suspense, he discharged 
the painful duties of his position ; the admirable precision of the 
bulletins which he issued to the press and through Minister 
Lowell to the foreign legations ; and the perfection of the replies 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 755 

which he dictated to official expressions of sympathy at home 
and abroad. 

On September 6 the President was removed from Washington 
to Elberon, whither he was followed the same day by Mr. Blaine 
and the rest of the Cabinet. The apparent improvement in the 
President's condition warranted the belief that he would continue 
to gain, and Mr. Blaine went for a short rest to his home in 
Augusta. He was on his way back to Elberon, when the fatal 
moment came, and reached there the next morning. 

These were times which tested the inner elements of greatness 
and proved the worth of genuine manhood. At no moment of 
this long, dreary and painful ordeal did Mr. Blaine drop a single 
link in the intricate chain of official propriety, nor fail in any of 
the obligations which friendship imposed and sympathy exacted. 
To him not merely the President was stricken, but the man, the 
friend, the brother. In the suspense of those dying hours, days, 
months ; amid the anxious quests and universal laments of a 
nation ; at the bedside, in the stricken family, or by some hastily- 
improvised desk of state, he was truly great in his sorrowful 
patience, thoughtful consolation and anxious regard. 

While the death of Garfield was the end of his original 
diplomacy, it did not terminate his career as Secretary of State. 
He was solicited by President Arthur to remain until such tirne 
as he saw fit to resign. He found it agreeable to do this in 
December, and on Dec. 12, 1881, Mr. Frelinghuysen became 
his successor. 

PRIVATE LIFE. — On his return to private life, after an un- 
interrupted public career extending over twenty years, he car- 
ried with him all of his merited political renown, all his un- 
equalled reputation for learning and eloquence, all of the just 
confidence which had come to be reposed in his rectitude, all 
of the respect which a generous and loving people graciously 
extended to conscientious conviction and bravery of heart. And 
these were to grow, as well in the shades of retreat, as amid the 
sunshine of public life. He could not, if he would, lose interest 
in the body politic. The mildew of retiracy found no hold in 
his organization. He could not be idle. It would seem as if 



756 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

no public question escaped him. Not content with surface ex- 
aminations or passing comments he sought the roots of meas- 
ures; and if occasion required, wrote and spoke learnedly, fully, 
exhaustively of their merits. There was thus no obscuration of 
his genius by retiracy, no forgetfulness of his greatness in 
privacy. There was rather a daily growing admiration for his 
sterling qualities of head and heart, tinged perhaps with regret 
that his country and party should not be all the while receiving 
the direct stimulus of his leadership and the immediate benefits 
of his ripened experience. The processes were silently at work 
deep down among the people, whose manifestation was the re- 
solve that he should be further honored by them with their 
greatest and best gift. 

The generations will not willingly forget Mr. Blaine's formal 
eulogy on Garfield. The theme was his by reason of its sacred- 
ness, his because of nearness to the official life of the dead, hi? 
because the nation demanded words of tribute worthy of its 
profound, prolonged, exalted amen. Congress chose him to 
deliver the oration on Feb. 19, 1882, in the National House of 
Representatives, before the assembled government, the foreign 
representatives, the audience of the people. The oration was 
the birth of an exquisite taste. With personal history, analysis 
of character, estimate of public and private worth, heartless 
tragedy, mournful suspense, the shroud, the grave, all inviting 
to rhetorical vigor and sustained grandiloquence, he chose the line 
of simply chaste diction, just recital and easy eloquence, so that 
the oration was as if a grand symphony heard from ocean to 
ocean and from lake to gulf Touching "the storm of detraction " 
which met Garfield " at the very hour of his nomination and con- 
tinued with increasing volume until the close of his victorious 
campaign," he quoted what might have applied equally to himself 

** No might or greatness in mortality 

Can censure 'scape; backwounding calumny 
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong 
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? " 

His admirable paper, published in the Philadelphia Press, 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 757 

Nov. 22, 1853, on " Surplus Revenue," will be remembered by- 
many. It not only served to rescue an important subject — im- 
portant enough to have engaged the attention of statesmen from 
the date of the first public land sale up to 1846, and to have 
found a place in the Pennsylvania Republican platform of 1882 
— from obscurity, but to give it merited prominence and invite 
for it universal discussion. His thought was that if there was 
to be a distribution of surplus, it ought to be steady and of a 
definite amount, in order to benefit the recipient States. That, 
therefore, the income to the nation from the tax on liquors 
would be the best fund for the purpose. His arguments in sup- 
port of this thought were clear, forcible and original. The 
article was a model of perspicuity, and gave further proof of the 
fact that whatever subject he touched he not only clarified but 
exhausted. 

During this interval he engaged in the preparation of his 
history entitled " Twenty Years of Congress," the first volume 
of which has been published. It is hardly proper to speak of 
its merits till the entire work has appeared. But there is that 
in it thus far which entirely sustains his reputation for close 
observation of men and events, mastery of details, clearness of 
judgment, and love of truthful statement. His method is 
orderly, and his style perspicuous and pleasing. It is a valuable 
contribution to our political literature, and will rank with " Ben- 
ton's Thirty Years' View." 

IN BUSINESS.— Vi has been said of Mr. Blaine that a 
splendid journalist was lost when he entered public life. It is 
equally true that a splendid business man was lost. His pru- 
dence, method and rare good judgment have assured him a 
handsome competency. He started life poor, has never made 
money fast, is not to be ranked as among the very rich. His 
turn is not speculative ; therefore, he avoided the risk of bank- 
ruptcy, even if he lost the chance of great fortune. Relying on 
a judgment keen and unerring as the best, he ventured where 
prudence dictated, and seldom failed to realize a fair profit. His 
investments in real estate have as a rule been fortunate, and 
these have always been his preference. Even the eligible 



758 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

lot in Washington, contiguous to the Executive Mansion, which 
he bought and on which he was compelled to build a magnificent 
residence in order not to depreciate his own and surrounding 
real estate, but which proves quite too spacious and elegant for 
his Republican tastes — he lived in less ostentatious Washington 
quarters — has by no means proved to be the disastrous venture 
his friends predicted. 

For twenty years he has owned a valuable coal tract of several 
hundred acres near Pittsburg, his title to which is even with, if 
it does not ante-date, his first appearance in Congress. From 
this he has always derived a handsome income, and the property 
has greatly appreciated. His great interest in the development 
of West Virginia resources led him into railroad enterprises in 
that direction. These have more than met the hopes of their 
projectors. Valuable mining regions are being opened and 
prosperity is entering hitherto waste places. A deserved profit 
must, if it has not already, come to the founders of this plant. 
These are, in general, the charaqter of his business transactions. 
If he has been fortunate, let his judgment receive the credit. 
In all matters of business he is thoughtful, prompt, reliable. His 
credit is sterling. Except by invocation of the bitterest malice 
or most devilish envy there is no taint on his entire business 
record. 

777^ J/^i¥.— Mr. Blaine is now in his fifty-fifth year. Although 
above medium height, he is so compactly and powerfully built 
that he scarcely seems tall. His features are large and expres- 
sive ; he is slightly bald and his neatly trimmed beard is prema- 
turely gray ; his brows are lowering— his eyes are dark and keen. 
On the floor of Congress he manifested marvellous power and 
nerve. His voice is rich and melodious ; his delivery is fluent 
and vigorous ; his gestures are full of grace and force ; his self- 
possession is never lost. He has appeared on the stump in 
almost every Northern State, and is an exceedingly popular and 
effective campaign orator. His faculties have a keen edge; his 
memory is remarkably retentive ; and his practical knowledge 
of men and affairs has a broad range. This comprehensive 
knowledge is one of the secrets of his popularity. He knows 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 759 

men from one end of the country to the other, and he knows 
what they are thinking about. He has kept abreast with the 
average thought of his time — not above it or below it. 

He is an intense beHever in the American Republic, one and 
indivisible, and ready to brave the wrath of the East for the wel- 
fare of the West, as in the Chinese question ; ready to differ 
with political friends rather than submit to the indefinite suspen- 
sion of Habeas Corpus ; ready to stand attack from the con- 
servatives for the rights of the Southern blacks, as in his oppo- 
sition to Hayes' Southern policy ; " ready to tweak the mane of 
the British lion when that fine old king of beasts crashes too 
clumsily among our fishing flakes." It would be difficult to 
find a man who can, on the instant, without reference to book 
or note, give so many facts and statistics relating to our financial 
and revenue system, to our river and harbor improvements, to 
our public lands, to our railway system, to our mines and min- 
erals, to our agricultural interests — in fact, to everything that 
constitutes and includes the development, achievement, and suc- 
cess of the United States. This has been the study of his life, 
and his memory is an encyclopaedia. He remembers because it 
is easier than to forget. 

AT HOME. — Mr. felaine's home-life is plain, hearty, and 
happy. His Washington home is not inelegant. During his 
public career it was hospitable to the extent of occasional and. 
necessary public entertainment. Since his private life began, it 
is the home of the husband, the father, the student, and simply 
agreeable host. His domestic estate is without cloud. Mrs. 
Blaine is the model wife and mother, and more is due to her 
strong judgment, quick perception, and heroic courage than the 
world will ever know. They have six children. The eldest 
son. Walker Blaine, is a graduate of Yale College and of the 
Law School of Columbia College. He is a member of the bar 
of several States, and has been creditably engaged in public life 
in Washington. The second son, Emmons Blaine, is a graduate 
of Harvard College and the Cambridge Law School. The third 
is James G. Blaine, Jr., a lad of fourteen. The three daughters 
are named Alice, Margaret, and Harriet. The eldest was married 



760 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

more than a year ago to Brevet-Colonel J. J. Coppinger, U. S. A. 
Mr. Blaine is the companion and confidant of every one of them, 
and he has seen them grow into exemplary manhood and 
womanhood amid an atmosphere of parental mildness. Order 
reigns in his home work. He studies and writes during pre- 
scribed hours, devotes others to his family, and still others to 
social affairs. His Augusta home, a plain two-story house, near 
the State house, is simpler but not less orderly. Of the life 
there, Rev. J. H. Ecob, for ten years a Presbyterian clergyman 
at Augusta, says : 

" In his (Mr. Blaine's) house he was always the soul of geniality and good heart; 
there was always summer in that house, whatever the Maine winter might be without, 
and not only his rich neighbors and kinsmen welcomed him home, but a long line 
of the poor hailed the return of that family as a special providence. In the church 
he is honored and beloved. The good old New England custom of church-going 
with all the guests is enforced strictly in the Blaine household. Whoever is under 
his roof, from the President down, is expected to be with the family at church. Fair 
weather or foul, those pews were always well filled. Not only his presence, but his 
influence, his wise counsels, and his purse are freely devoted to ihe interests of the 
noble old South Church of Augusta. 

*'The hold which Mr. Blaine has maintained upon the hearts of such great num- 
bers of his countrymen is not sufficiently explained by brilliant gifts or magnetism. 
The secret lies in his generous, manly. Christian character. Those who have known 
him best' are not surprised that his friends all over the country have been determined 
that he should secure the highest honor within their gift. It is because they believe 
in him. The office has sought the man, the political papers to the contrary notwith- 
standing." 

CONVENTION OF i884.--On previous pages will be found 
the call and the work oT the convention. It is therefore only 
necessary to say here that from the date of his retiracy, Mr. 
Blaine gave up his Presidential aspirations and refused to yield 
his consent to being a candidate. He clung to this determi- 
nation with Spartan firmness, however importuned by his friends. 
His one answer was, " Gentlemen, I am not a candidate, and 
shall do nothing personally to promote my nomination." 

But there was that about the situation he could no more stay 
than could Canute the sea with his broom. The unit rule was 
a thing of the past, and district representation a matter of the 
present. The people were free to voice their preferences and set 
the seal of positive instruction on them, if necessary. Blaine 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 761 

was the best known man in the party, the completest represent- 
ative of its dominant thoughts, the chief centre of its highest 
confidences, the most perfect embodiment of its hopes and 
ambitions, the fullest symbol of American character. It was 
natural that the masses, uninfluenced by anything except their 
sturdy convictions, should spontaneously turn to him they knew, 
trusted and honored. It was equally natural that they should 
transfer their rejoicings over their own freedom to rejoicings 
over the prospect of securing his nomination, and to applause at 
the thing accomplished. In their fervor they were but echoing 
back the inspiration with which his pluck, ability, success, and 
intense interest in their welfare had, for twenty consecutive years, 
filled them. Blaine, declining honor, was having it thrust upon 
him. Blaine, refusing to work for himself, was working most 
successfully through the agency of love for his grand character, 
and respect for his many achievements. 

The venerable Judge West, of Ohio, who placed his nomina- 
tion before the Convention, struck the popular chord when he 
said : 

" Six times, in six campaigns, has that banner triumphed; that symbol of Union, 
freedom, humanity, and progress; some time by that silent man of destiny, the Wel- 
lington of American arms [wild applause] ; last by him at whose untimely taking 
off a nation swelled the funeral cries and wept above great Garfield's grave. [Cheers 
and applause.] 

" Shall that banner triumph again ? Commit it to the bearing of that chief [a 
voice : " James G. Blaine, of Maine." Cheers] — commit it to the bearing of that 
chief, the inspiration of whose illustrious character and great name will fire the 
hearts of our young men, stir the blood of our manhood, and redouble the fervor of 
the veteran, and the closing of the seventh campaign will see that holy ensign span- 
ning the sky like a bow of promise. [Cheers.] If triumph comes, the Republican 
Stales of the North must furnish the conquering battalions from the farm, the anvil, 
the loom, from the mines, the workshop, and the desk, from the hut of the trapper 
on the snowy Sierras, from the hut of the fisherman on the banks of the Hudson. 
The Republican States must furnish these conquering battalions of triumph. Come ! 
Does not sound political wisdom declare and demand that a leader shall be given 
to them whom our people will follow, not as conscripts advancing by funeral marches 
to certain defeat, but a grand civic hero whom the souls of the people desire, and 
•whom they will follow with all the enthusiasm of volunteers as they sweep on and 
onward to certain victory." 

AFTER THE NOMINATION.— VJord of Mr. Blaine's 



762 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

nomination was received with enthusiasm by the Republican 
party. Sentiment respecting it ran in a single groove of appro- 
bation, with here and there, at long intervals, a switch and siding 
for those to run out upon who in their disappointment had occa- 
sion to pause and think. A semi-Republican, but really anti- 
American sentiment, had shaped itself into open hostility prior 
to the convention, and much to its shame had employed the 
agency of personal abuse by reviving the stale and oft refuted 
slanders which had been the offspring of Democratic imagination 
or malignity in by-gone campaigns. One of these was as to Mr. 
Blaine's connection with the Credit Mobilier. 

CREDIT MOBILIER.— ^Q do not allude to this through 
any sense of political necessity, nor with a view to vindication, 
for that is not only out of our line, but of no use at all in view 
of the wholesale and manifestly malicious misrepresentations of 
the entire affair. But we have to preserve what are called the 
" historic verities," and as Mr. Blaine was a part of the Credit 
Mobilier investigation, his precise position in it should be 
known. 

We have taken great pains to verify what is here written by 
the official records, and to " nothing extenuate nor aught set 
down in malice." 

During the Presidential campaign of 1872 charges were made 
by Democratic orators and newspapers, to the effect that several 
public men had accepted Credit Mobilier stock from Oakes 
Ames as a present, and in order to influence legislation in favor 
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The charges were very 
vague, as such charges always are. Among the officials they 
reached was the Speaker of the House, Mr. Blaine. On the 
day the Second Session of the Forty-second Congress opened, 
Mr. Blaine asked Mr. Cox (Democrat) to take the chair. Re- 
member the House was Republican by 138 Republicans to 103 
Democrats, and the Senate by 57 Republicans to 17 Democrats. 
Mr. Blaine took the floor, alluded to the charges, and asked that 
an investigating committee be appointed, to inquire into their 
truthfulness and report to the House. He thus not only moved 
for his own inculpation if he were guilty, but he had purposely 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 763 

placed a leading Democrat in the chair to appoint the investi- 
gating committee, a thing entirely unusual. The committee ap- 
pointed consisted of Poland, of Vermont, and McCreary, of 
Iowa, both Republicans; Banks, of Massachusetts, a Greeley 
Democrat ; and Niblack, of Indiana, and Merrick, of Maryland, 
both straight-out Democrats. 

All in all, this was a wholly exceptional situation. To all 
campaign stories, with whatever motive concocted or for what- 
ever purpose circulated, the majority in Congress might have 
rested on the vindication they had received at the polls, and 
would have done so if they had been opposed to a thorough 
investigation and a full exposure of corrupt practices. The 
movement for investigation came from themselves. Again, 
they might of right, and in accordance with the practice of the 
government from the beginning, have appointed a committee 
which represented the majority of the Congress, and the admin- 
istration as well. This right," or custom, was waived, and an all- 
important and far-reaching investigation was, for the first time in 
legislative history, entrusted by a dominant party to its political 
foes. 

The investigation' covered nearly three months. It was 
patiently and carefully made, as may well be supposed under the 
circumstances. The whole ground was covered from the vague 
charges to the very bottom of the Credit Mobilier and Union 
Pacific Railroad transactions. The persons charged were one 
by one fully examined and their statements compared with each 
other and with outside testimony. Their report, made Feb. i8, 
1873, was considered one of the most commanding and ex- 
haustive judicial documents of the time. No State paper ever 
carried greater weight. It was accepted by all parties as a 
finality, and many who had used the charges which called it 
forth regretted their thoughtless action after they were made ac- 
quainted with the facts. 

The committee found that the Credit Mobilier of America 
was incorporated by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. That it 
became the construction agent for the Union Pacific Railroad. 
That in 1867 it engaged to build for the Union Pacific 667 miles 



764 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of road at prices ranging from ^42,000 to ^$96,000 per mile, 
which contract was ratified by the Union Pacific. That in .1868 
the stock of the Credit MobiUer was considered as worth two 
to three times its par value, but that the fact was not generally- 
known, because there was none on the market. That in Decem- 
ber, 1867, Oakes Ames, then a member of the House, and a 
stockholder in both the Union Pacific and Credit Mobilier, offered 
to members of Congress shares of Credit Mobilier stock at par. 

" It does not appear," we use here the exact language of the committee, *' that in 
any instance he asked any of ihese persons to pay a higher rate than par and interest, 
nor that he used any special effort or urgency to get these persons to take it. In all 
these negotiations, Mr. Ames did not enter into any details as to the value of the 
stock or the amount of dividend that might he expected from it, but stated generally 
that it was a good stock, and in several instances said he would guarantee that they 
should get at least 10 per cent, on their money." 

When some of these gentlemen raised the question that taking 
the stock might embarrass their legislative action, they were 
told by Mr. Ames that that could never be, for thp Union Pacific 
had all the grants and legislation it wanted, and should ask for 
nothing more. Some persons who took stock paid for it out- 
right. For those who wanted it, but who had not the money, 
Mr. Ames agreed to carry it till they could get money, or until 
the dividends paid for it. 

The committee then made a special finding as to each mem- 
ber of the House whom the rumors mentioned. Again we 
quote in full: 

" In regard to each of the members of the present House, the committee deem 
it their duty to state specially the facts they find proved by the evidence, which in 
some instances is painfully conflicting, 

"MR. JAMES G. BLAINE, OF MAINE. 
"Among those who have in the public press been charged with improper participa- 
tion in Credit Mobilier stock is the present Speaker, Mr. Blaine, who moved the 
resolution for this investigation. The committee have, therefore, taken evidence in 
regard to him. They find from it that Mr. Ames had conversation with Mr. Blaine 
in regard to taking ten shares of the stock, and recommended it as a good invest- 
ment. Upon consideration Mr. Blaine concluded not to take the stock, and never 
did take it, and never paid or received anything on account of it ; and Mr. Blaine 
never had any interest, direct or indirect in Credit Mobilier stock or stock of the 
Union Facile Railroad Com^any.^* 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 7g5 

THE MULLIGAN LETTERS.— V^^ dignify a title altogether 
unworthy by even so much as a mention of the " Mulligan 
Letters." They were but an infinitesimally small part of what 
should have been an honorable procedure on the part of the 
Democratic majority in the Forty-fourth Congress, and would 
have been had not investigation been given a personal turn by a 
desire to follow wherever shallow rumors led. The history 
of the investigation made up from the Congressional record is 
this. 

A bill approved Feb. 9, 1853, before the war, gave right of 
way and grants of public lands in Arkansas and Missouri to the 
Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. An act of July 28, i860, 
revived the above act. On April 9, 1869, the day before the last 
of the extra session of the Forty-first Congress, a bill was in 
order to extend the time of the completion of the first section 
of twenty miles of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad in 
order that it might not forfeit its land grants and franchises. 
Four hundred men were then at work and the job would be 
finished soon, but not before the close of the session, which was 
the next day, April 10. Mr. Julian moved as an amendment 
to the bill the incorporation of the Memphis, El Paso and 
Pacific Railroad. The design was to kill the Little Rock bill, 
or make it carry this new charter, which granted a right of way 
and all charter privileges. Mr. Roots, of Arkansas, saw the 
object, pleaded for its withdrawal, and besought the Speaker to 
prevent this dilatory legi^ation. Mr. Blaine, as is the custom 
with Speakers when a member unacquainted with parliamentary 
procedure is in a fix, suggested that the amendment was not 
germane. His page so informed General Logan, a friend of the 
Little Rock bill, and he rose to a question of order and said : 

" The amendment is not germane. The bill is to revive a certain land grant and 
extend time. The amendment is another charter for a Pacific Railroad with fran- 
chises, bridges, right of way, etc. I have been in favor of the Little Rock bill, but 
it cannot be made to carry this." 

The chair sustained the point of order thus : 

" It is expressly prohibited by the rule that where a land grant is under considera- 
tion another grant to a different company cannot be entertained. This is not a 



"766 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

specific land grant, but it does give away the public land of the United States, so 
far as to give a right of way. Again, by the rules, no proposition upon a subject 
different from that under consideration can be admitted under the color of an 
amendment." 

That this was good law no person has ever doubted. To 
have ruled otherwise would have perverted the situation and 
been regarded as improper and illegal. The bill passed the 
same day with an amendment by Mr. Julian providing that the 
lands donated be sold only to actual settlers. See Congressional 
Record, p. 701, First Session Forty-ninth Congress, proceedings 
of April 9. 

In the Forty-fourth Congress, First Session, May 2, 1876, a 
resolution was passed and referred to the Judiciary Committee 
instructing them to inquire whether the Union Pacific Railway 
Company did in 187 1 or 1872 become owner of any bonds of 
the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railway at less than their market 
value. Mr. Knott, Ky., was chairman of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee. He raised a sub-committee of three, of which Mr. 
Hunton, Va., was chairman, to conduct the investigation. 
Shortly after, another resolution was referred, asking for a similar 
investigation as to the Northern Pacific Railroad. 

Mr. Blaine had urged a prompt report from the Committee. 
They had pushed along with their duty as to the Union Pacific 
Railroad Company ; the endeavor being to show that he was in- 
terested in ;^75,ooo worth of bonds of Little Rock which the Union 
Pacific was said to have held. The books showed no evidence of 
such ownership or transfer. Hon. Thomas A. Scott swore he 
never made it, nor knew of it. Sidney Dillon, President, E. H. 
Rollins, Treasurer, Mr. Millard, a Government Director of the 
road and Morton, Bliss & Co., through whom all the negotiations 
of the road were carried on, all sent written denials of any such 
transaction. The Committee utterly failed to find a word of in- 
culpatory evidence regarding this transaction. 

As to the Northern Pacific Railroad the evidence was all one 
way. Not an oath could be educed nor even so much as an 
explanation which connected Mr. Blaine with any operation of 
that road. 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 7^7 

Rumors had not thus far proved very exact. A wild-goose 
chase was in order. The Committee began to stretch their 
powers by inquiry into Mr. Blaine's private transactions with 
Mr. Fisher, a Boston sugar refiner, and an intimate friend, who 
had at one time been a partner, or in intimate relations with one 
Mr. Caldwell, a broker. These had had for a clerk one Mulliken, 
or Mulligan— there are two spellings. Mr. Blaine's business re- 
lations with this firm extended over a period of thirteen years. 
Many letters had passed, addressed to Mr. Fisher, Mr. Caldwell 
not being known personally to Mr. Blaine, and for several years 
being both disconnected with the firm and out of the country. 

In pursuit of rumors implicating Mr. Blaine in the trans- 
actions of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, both Mr. 
Fisher and Mr. Mulligan were summoned. Mr. Mulligan 
borrowed of Mr. Fisher certain letters for the purpose, as he 
said, ** of refreshing his memory" as to Mr. Blaine's dealings with 
the firm, Mr. Fisher came armed with no such documents, and 
his testimony was as to the fairness of all transactions between 
the firm and Mr. Blaine. When Mr. Blaine learned that Mr. 
Mulligan was before the Committee with letters, to which he 
(Mulligan) was a stranger, in his possession, he asked to see 
them privately, and then returned them. On reflection he asked 
for them a second time with the privilege of copying them, pledg- 
ing their return. He took advice of Judge Jeremiah S. Black 
and Hon. Matt Carpenter, two of the profoundest lawyers then 
living, who advised him to retain them as privileged communica- 
tions of which either Mr. Fisher, to whom they were all ad- 
dressed, or himself were the only proper custodians, and posses- 
sion of which the Committee could not honorably have through 
a stranger to them, nor compel by any legal process. He further 
showed them to some forty-four members of Congress, that 
their full import might become known. Many tales were set 
afloat by Mulligan, or by the invention of others, as to Mr. 
Blaine's appeals for possession of these letters. They are too 
wild for credence, and not supported by trustworthy evidence. 

At this juncture Mr. Blaine determined to call the attention 
of the House and the country to the methods pursued by the 



768 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Committee. He had by this time become fully persuaded that 
the object of its procedure was personal to himself, and not in 
the interest of the public. He therefore, on June 5, 1876, rose 
to a privileged question, and stating that the Committee were 
about to turn their attention to newspaper reports touching busi- 
ness transactions with friends in Boston, a matter clearly beyond 
their jurisdiction under the resolution of investigation, moved a 
resolution for the investigation of all the railroads that had re- 
ceived land grants. He then said : " When this investigation 
began it was evidently confined to a transaction of the Union 
Pacific Railroad Company, in which it was alleged to have had 
in its possession ;^75,ooo worth of the bonds of the Little Rock 
Railroad. Then it took the direction of every rumor afloat. I 
had to appeal to the Committee and it decided that its Chair- 
man, the gentleman from Virginia, had no right to go there. 
When the famous Mulligan came loaded down with letters, he 
insisted on going into all my private memoranda and allowing 
them to be exhibited, and the gentleman tried his best to cap- 
ture and control my private correspondence. I have them. I 
claim them. I shall retain them, and let the Committee do 
what they will they cannot by any process in their power reclaim 
them." 

Here Mr. Blaine held aloft the entire batch, and then pro- 
ceeded to read them one by one. They numbered fifteen in all, 
with two or three scraps. After they were read the clerk called 
their numbers and the memoranda on the back to see if all had 
been read. They all compared except number eight, which on 
examination did not turn out to be Mr. Blaine's letter at all, but 
one written by Mr. Fisher to Mr. Blaine. This is the one which 
Mr. Blaine's enemies say he failed to read. It was not in the 
batch. He could not have read it had it been there, under the 
plea he had made for the sanctity of private correspondence. 
That he garbled the reading is absurd, for their contents were 
known to fifty of his friends, they were open to the inspection 
of the entire House, and moreover he insisted on Mr. Hunton, 
Chairman of the Investigating Committee, coming to his house 
and looking at them all privately, a step he refused to take, for 



JAMES G. BLAINE. 769 

the reason that if they could not be brought lawfully before the 
Committee for its use, he had no right to see them. 

The letters related solely to business transactions with Mr. 
Fisher. As Mr. Mulligan stated in his testimony, there was but 
one or two of them that could by any possibility raise a sus- 
picion that Mr. Blaine knew anything of the affairs of the Union 
Pacific Railroad. We have already seen the testimony of the 
officers of that road. Most of them had no meaning except as 
between an ordinary banking officer and a patron. One to 
which much importance has been attached, written to Mr. 
Pisher, June 29, 1869, nearly three months after his decision as 
Speaker, seems to imply that Mr. Caldwell knew of " ground 
floor " securities of the Little Rock road which might be had. 
But if so Mr. Fisher failed to find it out and Mr. Blaine never 
purchased or received any such. As to said road he had never 
heard tell of it till it came up in the bill on which he rendered 
the decision, nor had any of his Boston friends any interest in it 
at that time nor till three months afterwards. 

Subsequently when the mortgage bonds of the road were on 
sale, Mr. Blaine in common with hundreds of other public men, 
bankers and private citizens, bought what was called a " block " 
of these Little Rock securities, in market overt and on the same 
terms as any other person. The " block " consisted of a certain 
amount of first mortgage and second mortgage bonds, and a pro- 
portionate amount of stock. By selling the second mortgage 
bonds he hoped to clear his investment. He did sell them, and 
to friends. They went down, and not wishing his friends to lose 
by him, he took them back and pocketed the loss. Many of the 
letters complained of the cramped condition he found himself in 
on account of this. By October 4, 1869, this, to him, disastrous 
transaction was closed out. On that date, and after he had evi- 
dently been looking over his decisions as Speaker, he wrote a 
letter to Mr. Fisher, in which he cursorily calls attention to the 
decision in question and incidentally alludes to it as one which 
in its results favored the road. At this time Mr. Blaine had 
sold all his securities and had no interest whatever in it. He 
had previously shown in the House that the road had derived 
49 



770 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

its " real life, value and franchises from the State of Arkansas/* 
so that the legislation by Congress was not so vital as some sup- 
posed. Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, speaking of Mr. Blaine's letters^ 
said : *' They prove that the charges repeated are not only un- 
true but impossible, and will continue so to prove till the 
Gregorian Calendar can be turned around, and October made to 
precede April in the stately procession of the years." 

It should not be omitted that the Record shows that Mr. Knotty 
pending the investigation, telegraphed to London to Mr. Cald- 
well, and got a response which was a complete exoneration of Mr» 
Blaine, but which was for a long time withheld, if not finally 
suppressed. All in all the animus of the investigation became 
too patent for it to command any respect. The only purpose 
it ever served was to float for a brief while the idle rumors of 
previous years. It never reported a thought worthy of serious 
consideration, and in fact wasted away and disappeared in a 
vacuum of its own invitation. 




LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN. 

|ARENTAGE. — Major-General John Alexander Logan, 
the nominee of the Republican party for Vice-President, 
is both a distinguished soldier and statesman. His 
father was Doctor John Logan, a native of Ireland, who 
immigrated to Illinois in 1823, and who married Elizabeth 
Jenkins, of Tennessee, in 1824. The son, John, was born near 
Murphysboro, Jackson county. 111., on the 9th of February, 1826. 
His parents had eleven children, of whom the subject of our 
sketch was the oldest. Until his fourteenth year, on account of 
the unsettled condition of the State, he enjoyed few of the ad- 
vantages of education, except those provided by his father. 
After that he secured such knowledge as the common school 
system of the time afforded, and as he could add to his store 
by self-culture. 

A SOLDIER. — When the Mexican war broke out in 1846, 
he entered the army as Second Lieutenant of the First Regi- 
ment of Illinois Volunteers, and served with credit till the return 
of peace. During his term of service he was promoted to the 
adjutancy of his regiment, and was mustered out as quarter- 
master. In 1848, at the age of twenty-two, he returned to his 
native State and began the study of law, in the office of his 
maternal uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, formerly Lieutenant- 
Governor of Illinois. His reading was followed by attending a 
course of legal lectures at the Louisville law school, where he 
received a diploma in 185 1. Previous to this, in November, 
1849, he had been elected clerk of his native county, and held 
the position till 1850. 

(771) 



772 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

IN PUBLIC LIFE. — After graduating, he began prac- 
tice in the office of Judge Jenkins. Here he soon developed 
those quahties which indicated a career of usefulness far wider 
in range than that of the bar. The broadly practical cast of his 
mind, his winning manners and popular turn, connected with his 
rare abilities as a ready and earnest speaker, soon gained for him 
warm friends and great fame among the voters of his county. 

In one year from the date of his admission to the bar (1852), 
his legal qualities and popular ways were recognized by his 
election as Prosecuting Attorney of the Third Judicial District, 
and he took up his residence at Benton, in Franklin county. 

In the fall of 1852 he was elected to the State Legislature to 
represent Franklin and Jackson counties. He was re-elected 
continuously from 1852 to 1856. He was all this time a 
pronounced Democrat. On the 27th of November, 1855, he 
married, at Shawneetown, Miss Mary Cunningham, daughter of 
John W. Cunningham. 

In May, 1856, he was appointed Presidential elector for the 
Ninth Congressional District, on the Democratic ticket, and in 
that capacity cast his vote for James Buchanan for President and 
John C. Breckinridge for Vice-President. In the same year he 
was elected to the State Legislature for the last time. 

TO CONGRESS. — Mr. Logan was now a conspicuous mem- 
ber of his party, and much trusted in its counsels. In the Leg- 
islature he had made a decided mark as an orator, and on the 
stump he was regarded with the greatest favor. In 1858 he was 
elected to Congress in the Ninth District, on the Democratic 
ticket, by 15,878 votes as against 2,796 for his Republican oppo- 
nent. He made his first appearance in the Thirty-sixth Con- 
gress, Dec. 5, 1859. Here he was confronted with the Kansas 
question, the Covode Investigation, and in general the design of 
his party to carry slavery into the Territories in spite of what 
was then known as the doctrine of " Squatter Sovereignty." 
His strict party views underwent considerable modification, and 
before the session was over he had linked his fortunes with the 
liberal or Douglas wing of Democracy. 

In i860 he was re-elected to Congress as a Douglas Demo- 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 773 

crat, by 21,381 votes to 5,439 for his opponent. He was now 
fully committed to popular sovereignty, and an ardent foe of 
arbitrary slavery extension. He stumped the country for Doug- 
las, and was everywhere recognized as an able, versatile, and 
magnetic campaigner. He was earnest, frank, forcible, and 
always impressed his hearers with the fact that he possessed the 
courage of well-studied and deeply grounded conviction. 

IN THE ARMY.— AitQY this election he appeared in the 
Thirty-seventh Congress, at its special session July 4, 1861. But 
the turn which affairs had taken left him no longer a Democrat. 
Before the 4th of March, and when there was a strong proba- 
bility of interference with the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, he 
avowed his intention to see him inaugurated, even if he had to 
shoulder a musket and march to Washington. The war was 
now on, and the young Congressman could not restrain his 
patriotic devotion nor the zeal born of former military experi- 
ence. The Second Michigan Regiment, Colonel Israel B. Rich- 
ardson, marched through the capital to the front. Shouldering 
a musket, he fell into the ranks, and on July 21, 1 86 1, partici- 
pated, as a private, in the disastrous battle of Bull Run. 

After the battle he returned to Congress, where he took a 
decisive stand in favor of prompt and efficient war legislation^ 
urging with all the intensity of his ardent nature the necessity 
of raising sufficient men to crush organized and armed rebellion. 
At the close of the extra session, August 6, 1861, he resigned his 
seat, and hastening to his home, proceeded at once to raise a 
regiment. Such was his energy and popularity that, by the i8th 
of September, he had succeeded in raising the Thirty-first Reg- 
iment of Illinois Volunteers, of which he was commissioned 
Colonel, the commission dating from August loth. 

A COLONEL. — His regiment immediately entered the field 
as a part of McClernand's Brigade, then operating in the Depart- 
ment of Tennessee, and on the lines which led to Fort Don- 
elson. The first engagement of moment in which he participated 
was the brief but sanguinary battle of Belmont (Nov. 7, 1861). 
Here his gallantry was conspicuous, and he had his horse shot 
under him. The ability he displayed here, united with his dash 



f74 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

and intrepidity, foreshadowed the fact that he was to play a 
prominent part in these active and trying operations. He was 
at the taking of Fort Henry, where his command overtook a 
company of retreating rebel artillerists and captured eight guns. 
This was the prelude to Fort Donelson, whick was strongly 
invested, and where occurred some of the fiercest fighting of the 
war. Says one historian, speaking of a sortie made by the rebels 
in conjunction with the arrival of expected aid from the outside, 
" Oglesby and McArthur, with too scant ammunition for the 
unexpected battle, stood firm for a while, but fresh rebel troops 
continued to arrive, and had it not been for the coolness of the 
brigade commanders and the inspiring valor of Colonel John A. 
Logan with his Thirty-first Illinois Regiment, the attack might 
have proved a panic to our troops." 

In one of the many daring charges at Do"helson he was 
severely wounded by a musket ball in the left arm and shoulder, 
and was twice wounded in the thigh, but remained on the field 
exhorting his men, until removed by the surgeon. On account 
of his wounds and a serious spell of sickness, during which his 
life was despaired of, he did not rejoin his command for several 
weeks. Donelson, which surrendered Feb. i6, 1862, it will be 
remembered, was the grand break in the rebel line, which necessi- 
tated the fall of Nashville, and the formation of a new line a 
hundred miles southward. The entire Union army pushed 
forward to occupy this conquered field, the objective point on the 
Mississippi being Pittsburg Landing. 

A BRIGADIER.— On the 5th of March, 1862, he was pro- 
moted to be a Brigadier-General of volunteers, and returned to 
the field in April, 1862, shortly after the battle of Shiloh, which 
was fought April 6 and 7. Corinth was now besieged by the 
Union forces. Being a point of great strategic value it was 
tenaciously held by the rebels, and its investment was by slow 
approaches and amid much hard fighting. During the entire 
siege General Logan held command of a brigade of McCler- 
nand's division, and won fresh laurels as a cool-headed and 
determined officer. His post was on the right wing of the army, 
and for valiant and timely services he was publicly thanked by 
General Sherman. Corinth fell, May 29, 1862. 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 775 

In July, 1862, the Districts of Tennessee and Northern Mis- 
sissippi were united under Grant, when began that brilHant 
series of movements designed to co-operate with the upward 
moving Union fleets on the Mississippi, which eventually re- 
sulted in securing control of that river, and which are known in 
history as the celebrated fall and winter campaign of 1862-63. 
In these movements Logan's command was an active partici- 
pant, and he Was relied on as an officer of superior skill and 
daring, as well as one born for success. 

On Dec. 22, 1 862, Grant issued his new order dividing the army 
into corps, thus practically doing away with the geographic 
divisions. To the Seventeenth corps of the Army of the Mis- 
sissippi, General McPherson was assigned as commander. It 
was composed of four divisions, and the Third Division was 
placed in command of General Logan. 

A MAJOR-GENERAL.— \xi the spring of 1863 he was 
commissioned Major-General, to date from Nov. 29, 1862. 
Vicksburg was now the objective point. The work of pushing 
thither was arduous. Logan's division was unceasingly active. 
He participated in the spirited battles of Bruinsville, and the 
two at Port Gibson in the latter part of April, all of which were 
decisive Union victories. At Raymond, May 12, 1863, his 
division came upon Gregg's brigade of rebel cavalry strongly 
covered by a dense woods. A hot engagement ensued, lasting 
for two hours and a half, which resulted in a complete rout of 
the rebels. 

Sherman was now sent to join McPherson for the capture of 
Jackson. The enemy were badly worsted in a sanguinary battle. 
May 14, in which Logan's division bore an honored part. With 
his division in the front, the Union forces were pushed rapidly 
to Champion Hills, where occurred the battle and victory of May 
16. During this battle, Logan, who was on the right wing, 
attacked Stevenson, who was on the enemy's left, and drove him 
back so far that for a time it looked as if he were about to cap- 
ture Pemberton's entire army. Following this was the spirited 
engagement at the crossing of the Big Black, of which point 
the Union forces got possession, May 17. 



776 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Now came the investment of Vicksburg. Sherman's corps 
was on the right, McPherson's in the centre, McClernand's on 
the left. There need be no recital of the endurance and daring 
of our troops and their officers in front of this stronghold, and 
there ought to be no discrimination where all were equally earnest, 
brave and loyal. The country yet remembers its thrill of joy 
at the announcement of the surrender of Vicksburg, July 4, 
1863. Says Coppee (see "Grant and his Campaigns," p. 192), in 
speaking of the splendid manoeuvres and dashing onsets which 
characterized Grant's approaches to and capture of this last rebel 
grip on the Father of Waters, ** It is no injustice to others to 
say that his chief supporters were Sherman, McPherson and 
Logan. . . . Logan's dashing valor was eminently conspicuous. 
Having declared that the western men would hew their way to 
the gulf, he was a bright example of the truth of his pre- 
diction ; ever at his post and always distinguished for that 
fearless impetuosity which the world now considers his character- 
istic." 

After the capture of Vicksburg, Grant arranged affairs there 
by making McPherson Commander and Logan Post-Com- 
mander. Here, on July 12, 1863, was organized for the Seven- 
teenth corps a " Board of Honor," of which Logan was made 
president. It was for the purpose of distributing honorary 
medals to all who had distinguished themselves for bravery and 
effective service. The position of Post-Commander gave him 
opportunity for much needed rest, or at least recreation. Avail- 
ing himself of it he obtained leave of absence, visited the North, 
and made a series of stirring and effective speeches, wherever 
elections were pending, in aid of the cause of the war party, in 
favor of the abolition of slavery, and in bitter denunciation of 
the peace agitators, then designated " Copperheads." 

In the reorganization of army affairs in the fall of 1863 Sher- 
man was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee. The position 
of Commander of the Fifteenth corps became vacant. General 
Blair having retired temporarily to take a seat in Congress, to 
which he had been elected while in service. General Logan 
was, therefore, promoted to the command of this corps, Oct. 2'j ^ 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 777 

1863. The corps under General Blair had been at luka, Chat- 
tanooga, Knoxville and Missionary Ridge, and was now ready 
for winter-quarters and recruitment at Huntsville. The cam- 
paign toward Atlanta was under consideration. At the incep- 
tion of this campaign the army known as that of the Tennessee 
passed to the command of McPherson. It comprised Logan's 
Fifteenth corps and parts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth, all 
of which were at Huntsville. Grant had, March 4, 1864, been 
called to the Army of the Potomac. He and Sherman had 
mapped the Atlanta campaign and the " Grand March to the 
Sea." 

In that magnificent sweep of the combined armies of the 
West through heavily guarded mountain passes, and across diffi- 
cult streams, the services of Logan and his corps were in constant 
requisition. At Resaca, Kenesaw Mountain, Dallas, the wonder- 
ful crossing of the Chattahoochee, and Atlanta, he added to the 
glory of past achievements by a succession of daring and suc- 
cessful exploits. His name had become the synonym of 
victory. Where Logan led all was sure to go well. In infantry 
he was what Sheridan was in cavalry, watchful, restless, prompt, 
fearless, yet with a judgment as to situations that amounted to 
an intuition. 

Sherman's move had been a succession of battles and victories. 
But Atlanta was a stumbling-block. The combined armies drew 
around it and affected its capture directly. Hood, freshly 
assigned to position and with fresh forces, held his ground sturdily 
through three great battles, those of July 20, 22 and 28, 1864. 
In the battle of the 22d, Hood centred an attack on McPher- 
son's army, and that general was killed. There was no time 
for grief over the loss of so distinguished an officer. Sherman 
instantly despatched a staff officer to Logan to tell him what 
had happened, order him to assume temporary command of 
the Army of Tennessee, and hold stubbornly the ground it 
occupied. During the day the Fifteenth corps had been receiv- 
ing the brunt of Hood's fierce onset, and it had gradually lost 
ground. Orders came to regain it at whatever cost. Logan 
with soldierly instinct had anticipated the orders, and was 



778 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

already in motion. His movement was executed in superb 
style, the soldiers locking bayonets over improvised parapets, 
and literally swaying in hand-to-hand conflict. Logan threw 
himself with all his fire into the close and heated action, now 
stopping to re-establish a broken line, and then dashing along 
the front exclaiming, " McPherson and revenge ! " he succeeded 
in securing from his excited troops that last, united and supreme 
onset which swept the enemy from the field with great slaughter. 
The lost ground was won. General Sherman in his official re- 
port accords to Logan the success of the battle. In the battle 
of the 28th, equally as hard-fought, Logan's command again 
withstood the most determined attacks of the enemy. 

On the 27th of July General Howard took charge of the Army 
of Tennessee, thus relieving Logan of a temporary command, 
which he had exercised with the greatest ability and most pro- 
nounced success. He returned to his old command of the Fif- 
teenth corps. The siege went on for nearly a month. Sherman 
now, August 25, changed the situation of affairs by a flank move- 
ment with the design of cutting off the enemy's southern com- 
munications and perfecting his siege operations. This gave rise 
to several determined battles. Throughout these movements 
Logan's corps always occupied a post on the extreme right 
flank, Sherman knowing full well the danger to which his wings 
were exposed in executing a movement of that kind, and who to 
entrust with the most responsible situations. The enemy now 
became desperate. The great battle of August 31, 1864, was the 
result. Hood's forces were cut in twain. The burden of this 
battle again fell on the right flank of the Union army. Logan's 
corps stood without flinching, through five terrible charges made 
by the enemy. On the sixth the rebels were charged in turn 
and entirely driven from their position and the field. On Sept. 2, 
1 864, the city was evacuated by the rebels and occupied by Union 
troops. 

The way was now clear for the march to the sea. The army 
was reorganized for the purpose. General Logan turned his 
corps over to General Osterhaus, and came North to enter the 
campaign of 1864 for Lincoln and Johnson, in which his vig- 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 779 

orous speeches were of great service to the Union cause and the 
Republican party. 

Sherman presented to President Lincoln the city of Savannah 
as a Christmas gift for 1864. On January 15, 1865, he began 
his Northern march. General Logan had joined him in the 
meantime and assumed command of the Fifteenth corps, reliev- 
ing General Osterhaus. The line of march was fully straightened 
by February ist, and Logan's corps had a road of its own. The 
march was a series of skirmishes at every guarded point, a con- 
stant laying of pontoons or building of bridges, a system of 
almost perpetual reconnoitring and cautious flank movements. 
An active but retreating enemj^ was all the while in their front, 
turning everything into difficulty, never standing for a fight, 
except at Goldsboro and Kingston, where they were easily routed. 
At Goldsboro the three armies, or marching lines, of Sherman 
met March 25, 1865, and were in communication with Grant's 
forces. 

Here the army was reorganized, Howard holding the right 
wing, which still retained its name as the Army of the Ten- 
nessee, and which was composed, as during its march from Sa- 
vannah, of Logan's Fifteenth and Blair's Seventeenth corps. 
Sherman's grand objective was to throw his army north of the 
Roanoke facing west, with a base of supplies at Norfolk and in 
full communication with the Army of the Potomac. Here 
Logan again appears on the right wing, the post of danger and 
of honor. 

Word came of the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. March ! 
was the immediate order of Sherman. He knew Johnston must 
retreat. Through Raleigh they went, to Ashboro, to the Cape 
Fear, amid rain and mud. Logan's and Blair's corps were 
stretched out as intercepting webs on the road to Pittsboro. 
Johnston, in despair, called a truce, April 18, and surrender fol- 
lowed. The Army of the Tennessee was ordered to Richmond, 
and then to Washington, where that of the Potomac was re- 
viewed on May 23, and Sherman's on the 24th. 

SOLDIERLY CHARACTERISTI CS. —Ssy CoXoneXs Bow- 
man and Irwin, in their "Sherman and his Campaigns," " Lo- 



780 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

gan's warm, impulsive nature gives him a powerful hold on the 
affections of his men, and a high courage and indomitable 
spirit enable him to lead them to victory." 

He is the most notable illustration of the success that has 
attended the efforts of those officers who, entering the army 
from civil life, have been content, instead of grasping at once at 
the highest honors, to learn the duties of their profession in the 
subordinate grades and to rise step by step according to their 
talents and experience. Beginning as a colonel of volunteers, 
for which position his Mexican services qualified him, he succes- 
sively rose through the command of a brigade and division to 
that of Sherman's old corps, and being temporarily placed at 
the head of a separate army, discharged the high responsibilities 
of that post, at an important period, with signal ability. While 
others, more ambitious but less patient or less deserving, fell 
from the height which, in a moment of laxity and want of 
knowledge they had been permitted to attain, Logan mounted 
steadily. While he did not abandon politics so far as public 
speaking and personal exhortation went, he steadily refused to 
be a candidate for any civil office till peace returned. 

Army records are sprinkled with anecdotal mention of Gen- 
eral Logan. He early got to be known as the " general who 
never lost a battle." As McClellan got to be affectionately and 
familiarly known as " Little Mac " ; Sheridan, as " Little Phil " ; 
Thomas, as " Old Pap," so Logan was always " Black Jack," on 
account of his dark complexion. It was said of Logan and 
Sheridan that they were the only Major-Generals in the army 
who were shorter in stature than Grant. 

Speaking of the " despised class " of fighting generals, into 
which class fall Grant, Hooker, Sheridan, Rousseau, and Logan, 
Mr. Shank, in his " Personal Recollections of Distinguished 
Generals," says : ''Rousseau and Logan owe everything to nature, 
and are leaders, not generals, intuitively. They never enjoyed 
the advantages of West Point, and as nature is unchecked in 
them by education, he who hunts for them in the' battle-field, 
must look for them along the front line and not with the re- 
serves Both are bold, daring, and enthusiastic in spirit ; 



JOHN A. LOGAN. 781 

one has a commanding presence, the other an inspiring eye, and 
the natural and most effective position of each is at the head of 
a forlorn hope, or leading desperate charges to successful issues. 
What Little Phil Sheridan was to the tall, towering and graceful 
Hooker, ' Black Jack Logan,' a somewhat short but graceful 
figure, in whose forehead is set the finest pair of eyes ever pos- 
sessed by man, was to the huge, ponderous, and somewhat hand- 
some figure of Rousseau. Hooker and Rousseau are different 
types of the tall and elegant, Sheridan and Logan illustrate the 
graceful in little men ; but the great hearts of each beat alike, 
and on the battle-field the daring and boldness of each are equally 
conspicuous and effective." And again, " Logan is the same 
daring, enthusiastic, and vigorous fighter that Sheridan is. He 
will always be prominent among the Marshal Neys of the war 
for the Union. He had the habit of precision to perfection. 
He is a man who, possessing all that vigor and boldness of 
heart which great physical strength and health gives, united 
Avith a naturally warm, enthusiastic, and daring temperament, 
■engaged heart and soul in every task that allured or interested 
him, and never abandoned it as a failure." 

IN PUBLIC LIFE AGAIN.— A^qt the close of the war he 
was (1865) appointed Minister to Mexico, by President Johnson. 
This honor he declined. In 1866 he was a delegate to the 
Soldiers' National Convention at Pittsburg. In the same year 
he was elected Congressman-at-large for the State of Illinois 
by 203,045 votes, as against 147,058 for his opponent. This 
brought him again into public life as a member of the Fortieth 
Congress, which, it will be remembered, opened March 4, 1867, 
and kept open by a series of adjourned sessions till the regular 
session in December. Its object was to frustrate any attempt 
of President Johnson to force executive power beyond Constitu- 
tional limits. Logan was one of the most vigilant of its mem- 
bers, and the most determined that the country should not lose 
through an apostate President any of the hard-earned fruits of 
the war. 

He was re-elected to the Forty-first Congress, 1869-71. 
In the winter of 1870-71 he was elected to the Senate. His 



782 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

term began March 4, 1871, and expired March 3, 1877. He 
was not then re-elected to the Senate because the Republicans 
did not control the Illinois Legislature, and David Davis be- 
came his successor through the aid of the Independent element. 
But two years later (1879) he was again chosen Senator to 
succeed Richard J. Oglesby, who became the Republican can- 
didate for governor. His term began March 4, 1879, ^^^ ^^" 
pires March 3, 1885. 

In his almost continuous public life since the close of the war, 
General Logan has been a true, practical and safe statesman. 
He is a tireless worker in committees and an able, fearless orator 
on the floor. His eloquence is fervid, his argument clear. 
The whole man enters into debate just as it did into battle. 
Not so ornate as some, he is nevertheless earnest, cogent and 
convincing. Whatever measure he espouses, you may be sure 
it will engage his whole power of thought and action. He is 
faithful to constituency and zealous of the welfare of the entire 
people as well as of the honor of the entire country. This 
self-taught, self-made man of the West is in heart and soul one 
of the finest specimens of nature's noblemen. There never was 
a time when he was not implicitly trusted by generals or 
privates. There never was a time when his constituency and 
party were not willing to trust him with their success and 
honor. 

In both Senate and House he has been a vigilant and useful 
member. It would be impossible to recite here his many 
forensic efforts or the numerous measures he has proposed and 
vindicated. But he was one of the managers of the Impeach- 
ment of President Johnson, a position to which none were 
assigned who were not able in law and in the art of pleading. 
His speech in the House during the Second Session of the 
Forty-first Congress, on the reduction of the army, was a 
masterly effort. So was that delivered, during the same session, 
on Cuban Independence. Perhaps his most eloquent and dis- 
passionate effort in the Senate was that of June 3, 1872, in 
defense of his old Commander General Grant. In this he 
showed an appreciation of worth, a gratitude for service done, a 



• JOHN A. LOGAN. 78a 

respect for personal and official honor, which quite put to shame 
the defamers of the great soldier. 

In all the measures of reconstruction he took an active and 
decisive part. Many of his speeches in this connection were 
widely circulated as campaign documents, and did much to 
stimulate the Republican party to the exercise of a vigorous 
policy. His speech on self-government in Louisiana, delivered 
in the Senate, Jan. 13 and 14, 1875, was exhaustive of the 
situation. It was deliberately prepared, abounded in striking 
illustrations, and gave opportunity for some of his best flights of 
oratory. Few speeches have ever been delivered in the Senate 
Chamber that carried so much weight and were received with 
greater favor. 

There are few public measures of moment that escape his 
attention, and he is recognized as among the most active and 
resolute debaters now in the Senate. The soldiers have ever 
found in him their warmest friend and advocate. He fought 
with the sturdiness of a hero all the steps to reinstate Fitz-John 
Porter to his old place in the army. On all the leading and 
vital questions of the Republican party he is sound to the core, 
yet not in a partisan sense, so much as from sincere and fearless 
conviction. At the present time he is at the head of the Senate 
Committee on Military Affairs, and second on the Judiciary 
Committee. 

AT CHICAGO. — He was a conspicuous candidate for the 
Presidency at Chicago, appearing there with 63^ votes on the 
first ballot, 61 on the second and 53 on the third. Seeing that 
his own chances were waning and that the nomination of Blaine 
was inevitable, he threw his forces to the " Plumed Knight," 
and accomplished what a vast majority of his party most desired. 
His nomination for the Vice-Presidency came about by accla- 
mation. His locality, his identity with the soldier element of 
the party, his popularity among the people, all conspired to 
make his nomination natural, spontaneous and strong. 

AT HOME. — General Logan resides in Washington, on 
Twelfth street. In his domestic relations he has been one of 
the most happy and fortunate of men. His wife has proved 



784 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

a most valuable helpmeet. There is no woman in public life 
who possesses more admirable traits than Mrs. Logan, and, 
what is unusual, her popularity with her own sex is quite as 
great as with the other. She has two children, a daughter, who 
is the wife of Paymaster Tucker, of the army, now stationed at 
Santa Fe, and a son, Manning, who is a cadet at West Point, 
having inherited his father's military ambition. Both of them 
have been educated by her, or under her personal supervision ; 
both have been constantly at lier side ; in the camp, during war 
time and in the most exciting political campaigns, she has never 
for a moment neglected the duties of her household or forgotten 
her children's claims. 




2 



PART IV. 

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC 
CAMPAIGN OF 1884. 



NOMINATING CONVENTION AT CHICAGO. 

THE PARTY PLATFORM. 



BIOGRAPHIES OF THE NOMINEES FOR PRESIDENT 

AND vice-president: 
HON. STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND, OF NEW YORK. 

AND 

HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS OF INDIANA. 




CALL OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC 
COMMITTEE. 

URSUANT to notice by the Chairman, the National 
Democratic Committee met in Washington on the 23d 
of February, 1884, with a full attendance. 

After selecting Chicago as the place for holding the 
next Democratic National Convention, and July 8 as 
the time, the following call was agreed to : 

OFFICIAL CALL. — The National Democratic Committee having met in the 
city of Washington on the 23d day of February, 1884, has appointed Tuesday, the 
8th day of July next,*at noon, as the time, and chosen the city of Chicago as the 
place of holding the National Democratic Convention. 

Each State is entitled to a representation therein equal to double the number of 
its Senators and Representatives in the Congress of the United States. The Demo- 
crats of each organized Territory and the District of Columbia are invited to send 
two delegates, subject to the decision of the Convention as to their admission. All 
Democratic conservative citizens of the United States, irrespective of past 
political associations and differences, who can unite with us in the effort for pure, 
economical and constitutional government, are cordially invited to join in sending 
delegates to the Convention. 

William H. Barnum, Chairman. . 
Frederick O. Prince, Secretary. 

MEETING OF CONVENTION.— O^ the 8th of July, 1884, 
the Convention met in the same hall used by the Republican 
Convention a month before. The building had been remodeled 
and redecorated for the occasion. The stage was now on the 
side instead of at the end, and the seats were changed to suit. 

Counting the delegates from the Territories as entitled to a 
vote, the Convention numbered 820 members. In accordance 
with a usage adopted as far back as 1844, i^^ Convention at 
Baltimore, the voice of two-thirds of the present Convention was 
required to secure a nomination. As to the States the unit rule 
(2) 



CONVENTION OF 1884. 3^ 

prevailed where instructions had been given in the State Con- 
ventions ; that is, each State first ascertained the sentiment of 
a majority of its delegates and voted it as the sentiment of the 
whole. 

At 12.37 p. M. the Convention was called to order by Hon. 
William H. Barnum, Conn., Chairman of the National Com- 
mittee. The proceedings were opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. 
Marquis, of Chicago. Hon. Richard B. Hubbard, Texas, was 
chosen temporary chairman. 

When the question of rules came up, a vigorous effort was 
made by the leaders of the Tammany organization to have the 
unit rule set aside in case the vote of any State were challenged. 
It failed by a vote of 350 yeas to 445 nays. 

A permanent organization was effected by electing Hon. W. 
H. Vilas, Wis., President of the Convention. He accepted in an 
eloquent speech, and the Convention was opened for formal 
business. 

The names placed in nomination as candidates for President 
were Thomas Francis Bayard, Del. ; Joseph E. McDonald, Ind. ; 
John G. Carlisle, Ky. ; Stephen Grover Cleveland, N. Y. ; Allen 
G. Thurman, Ohio ; Samuel J. Randall, Penna. ; George E. 
Hoadly, Ohio. 

THE PLATFORM.— ThQ following platform of sentiments, 
reported by the Committee on the loth, was adopted with very 
few dissenting votes : 

DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.— The Democratic party of the Union, 
through its representatives in National Convention assembled, recognize that 
as the nation grows older new^ issues are born of time and progress, and old issues 
perish. But the fundamental principles of the Democracy, approved by the united 
voices of the people, remain and will ever remain as th : best and only security for the 
continuance of free government. The preservation of personal rights, the equality of 
all citizens before the law, the rcr-orved rights of the States and the supremacy of 
the Federal Government within the limits of the Constitution, will ever form the 
true basis of our liberties and can never be surrendered without destroying that 
balance of rights and powers which enables a continent to be developed in peace, 
and social order to be maintained by means of local self-government ; but it is in- 
dispensable for the practical application and enforcement of these fundamental 
principles that the government should not always be controlled by one political 
party. Frequent change of administration is as necessary as constant re- 



4 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

currence to the popular will. Otherwise abuses grow, and the government, 
instead of being carried on for the general welfare, becomes an instrumentality for 
imposing heavy burdens on the many who are governed for the benefit of the few 
who govern. Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers. This is now the con- 
dition of the country — hence a change is demanded. 

REPUBLICAN PARTY.— The Republican party, so far as principle is con- 
cerned, is a reminiscence. In practice it is an organization for enriching those M'ho 
control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been brought to light 
in every department of the government are sufficient to have called for reform within 
the Republican party. Yet those in authority, made reckless by the long posses- 
sion of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence and have placed in nomi- 
nation a ticket against which the independent portion of the party are in open revolt. 

A CHANGE DEMANDED.— Thexeioxt a change is demanded. Such a 
change was alike necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was then defeated 
l)y a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned. Again, in 1880, the change 
demanded by the people was defeated by the lavish use of money contributed by 
unscrupulous contractors and shameless jobbers who had bargained for unlawful 
profits or for high office. The Republican party during its legal, its stolen, and its 
bought tenures of power has steadily decayed in moral character and polhical capac- 
ity. Its platform promises are now a list of its past failures. It demands the res- 
toration of our navy; it has squandered hundreds of millions to create a navy that 
does not exist. It calls upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American 
shipping has been depressed ; it imposed and has continued those burdens. It pro- 
fesses the policy of reserving the public lands for small holdings by actual settlers ; 
it has given away the people's heritage till now a few railroads and non-resident 
aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms 
between the two seas. 

It professes a preference for free institutions ; it organized and tried to legalize a 
conti^ol of State elections by Federal troops. It professes a desire to elevate labor; 
it has subjected American workingmen to the competition of convict and imported 
contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who were disabled or died in the war 
leaving widows and orphans; it left to a Democratic House of Representatives to 
equalize both bounties and pensions. It proffers a pledge to correct the irregularities 
of our tariff; it created and has continued them. Its own tariff commission con- 
fessed the need of more than 20 per cent, reduction ; its Congress gave a reduction 
of less than 4 per cent. It professes the protection of American manufactures ; it 
has subjected them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless 
competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw materials. It 
professes to protect all American industries; it has impoverished many to subsidize 
a few. It professes the protection of American labor; it has depleted the returns of - 
American agriculture — an industry followed by half our people. It professes the 
equality of all men before the law ; attempting to fix the status of colored citizens, 
the acts of its Congress were overset by the decisions of its courts. It " accepts 
anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform ;" its caught criminals 
are permitted to escape through contrived delays or actual connivance in the prose- 
cution. Honeycombed with corruption, outbreaking exposures no longer shock its 



• 



CONVENTION OF 1884. 5 

moral sense. Its honest members, its independent journals no longer maintain a 
successful contest for authority in its councils or a veto upon bad nominations. That 
chnnge is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of more than $100,000,000, 
which has yearly been collected from a suffering people. Unnecessary taxation is 
unjust taxation. We denounce the Republican party for having failed to relieve the 
people from crushing war taxes which have paralyzed business, crippled industry, 
and deprived labor of employment and of just reward. The Democracy pledges 
itself to purify the administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive 
respect forjaw, and to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard 
to the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and pensioners. 

TARIFF AND TAXA 77(9^— Knowing full well, however, that legislation 
affecting the occupations of the people should be cautious and conservative in method, 
not in advance of public opinion, but responsive to its demand, the Democratic party 
is pledged to revise the tariff" in a spirit of fairness to all interests. But in making 
reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to 
promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of the Government taxes col- 
lected at the custom-house have been the chief source of federal revenue. Such 
they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legis- 
lation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step 
regardful of the labor and capital thus involved, the process of reform must be sub- 
ject in the execution to this plain dictate of justice. All taxation shall be limited 
to the requirements of economical government. The necessary reduction in taxation 
can and must be effected without depriving American labor of the ability to compete 
successfully with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will 
be ample to cover any increased cost of production which may exist in consequence 
of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country. Sufficient revenue to pay all 
the expenses of the Federal Government economically administered, including pen- 
sions, interest and principal of the public debt, can be got, under our present system 
of taxation, from custom house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest 
on articles of luxury and bearing lightest on articles of necessity. "We therefore 
denounce the abuses of the existing tariff, and, subject to the preceding limitations, 
we demand that Federal taxation shall be exclusively for public purposes, and shall 
not exceed the needs of the Government economically administered. The system 
of direct taxation known as the "internal revenues " is a war tax, and, so long as 
the law continues, the money derived therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the 
relief of the people from the remaining burdens of the war and be made a fund to 
defray the expense of the care and comfort of worthy soldiers disabled in line of 
duty in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such pensions as Congress 
may from time to time grant to such soldiers — a like fund for the sailors having been 
already provided — and any surplus should be paid into the Treasury. 

HOME POLICY. — We favor an American continental policy based upon more 
intimate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister republics of North, 
Central, and South America, but entangling alliances with none. We believe in 
honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating 
medium convertible into such money without loss. Asserting the equality of all men 
before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the Government in its dealings with 



6 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

the people, to mete out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, 
race, color, or persuasion, religious or political. We believe in a free ballot and a 
fair count. And we recall to the memory of the people the noble struggle of the 
Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses by which a reluctant Re- 
publican opposition was compelled to assent to legislation making everywhere 
illegal the presence of troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a Democratic 
administration will preserve liberty with order. The selection of Federal officers 
for the Territories should be restricted to citizens previously resident therein. 

C/y/L SERVICE REFORM.— We oppose sumptuary laws which vex the 
citizens and interfere with individual liberty ; we favor honest civil-service reform 
and the compensation of all United Stales officers by fixed salaries ; the separation 
of Church and State, and the diffusion of free education by common schools, so 
that every child in the land may be taught the rights and duties of citizenship. 
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable distribution of prop- 
erty, to the prevention of monopoly and to the strict enforcement of individual rights 
against corporate abuses, we hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scru- 
pulous regard for the rights of property as defined by law. 

LABOR AND PUBLIC LANDS.— ^Ne believe that labor is best rewarded 
where it is freest and most enlightened. It should therefore be fostered and cher- 
ished. We favor the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the 
enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be incorporated, and of all such 
legislation as will lend to enlighten the people as to the true relations of capital and 
labor. We believe that the public land ought, as far as possible, to be kept as home- 
steads for actual settlers; that all unearned lan.is heretofore improvidently granted 
to railroad corporations by the action of the Republican party should be restored to 
the public domain, and that no more grants of land shall be made to corporations, 
or be allowed to fall into the ownership of alien absentees. We are opposed to all 
propositions which upon any pretext would convert the General Government into a 
machine for collecting taxes to be distributed among the States or the citizens 
thereof. 

CITIZENSHIP AND PROTECTION— In reaffirming the declaration of the 
Democratic platform of 1856, that the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in 
the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes 
ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever 
been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith, we nevertheless do not sanction the 
importation of foreign labor or the admission of servile races unfitted by habits, 
training, religion, or kindred for absorption into the great body of our people, or for 
the citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands that against 
the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed. 
The Democratic party insists that it is the duty of this Government to protect with 
equal fidelity and vigilance the rights of its citizens, native and naturalized, at home 
and abroad, and to the end that this protection may be assured,, United States papers 
of naturalization issued by Courts of competent jurisdiction must be respected by the 
executive and legislative departments of our own Government and by all foreign 
Powers. It is an imperative duty of this Government to efficiently protect all the 
rights of persons and property of every American citizen in foreign lands, and de- 



CONVENTION OF 1884. 7 

mand and enforce full reparation for any invasion thereof. An American citizen is 
only responsible lo his own Government for any act done in his own country or 
under her flag, and can only be tried therefor on her own soil and according to her 
laws ; and no power exists in this Government to expatriate an American citizen t© 
be tried in any foreign land for any such act. This country has never had a well- 
defined and executed foreign policy save under Democratic administration. That 
policy has ever been, in regard to foreign nations, so long as they do not act detri- 
mental to the interests of the country or hurtful to our citizens, to let them alone ; 
tliat as the result of this policy we recall the acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, Cali- 
fornia, and of the adjacent Mexican territory by purchase alone and contrast these 
grand acquisrtions of Democratic statesmanship with the purchase of Alaska, the sole 
fruit of a Republican administration of nearly a quarter of a century. 

The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi river and 
other great waterways of the Republic, so as to secure for the interior States easy 
and cheap transportation to tidewater. 

AN AMERICAN POLICY.— \5xiA&x a long period of Democratic rule and 
policy our merchant marine was fast overtaking and on the point of outstripping 
that of Great Britain. Under twenty years of Republican rule and policy our 
commerce has been left to British bottoms and the American flag has almost been 
swept off the high seas. Under Democratic rule and policy our merchants and 
sailors flying the Stars and Stripes in every port, successfully searched out a 
market for the varied products of American industry. Under a quarter century 
of .Republican rule and policy, despite our manifest advantage over all other 
nations in high-paid labor, favorable climates, and teeming soils ; despite free- 
dom of trade among all these United States; despite their population by the 
foremost races of men and an annual immigration of the young, thrifty, and adven- 
turous of all nations; despite our freedom here from the inherited burdens of life 
and industry in Old World monarchies, their costly war navies, their vast tax-con- 
suming, non-producing standing armies; despite twenty years of peace. Republican 
rule and policy have managed to surrender to Great Britain along with our commerce 
the control of the markets of the world. Instead of the Republican party's British 
policy we demand in behalf of the American Democracy an American policy. In- 
stead of the Republican party's discredited scheme and false pretenses of friendship 
for American labor expressed by imposing taxes, we demand in behalf of the Democ- 
racy freedom for American labor by reducing taxes, to the end that these United 
States may compete with unhindered powers for the primacy among nations in all 
the arts of peace and fruits of liberty. 

TRIBUTE TO TYZZJ^iV.— With profound regret we have been apprised by 
the venerable statesman, through w'hose person was struck that blow at the vital 
principle of republics (acquiescence in the will of the majority), that he cannot per- 
mit us again to place in his hands the leadership of the Democratic hosts, for the 
reason that the achievement .of reform in the administration of the Federal Govern- 
ment is an undertaking now too heavy for his age and failing strength. Rejoicing 
that his life has been prolonged until the general judgment of our fellow-country- 
men is united in the wish that wrong were righted in his person for the Democracy 
of the United States, we offer to him, in his withdrawal from public cares, not only 



8 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

our respectful sympathy and esteem, but also that best homage of freemen, the pledge 
of our devotion tc the principles and the cause now inseparable in the histdry of the 
Republic from the labors and the name of Samuel J. Tilden. 

REFORM AND CHANGE. — With this statement of the hopes, principles and 
purposes of the Democratic party the great issue of reform and change in adminis- 
tration is submitted to the people in calm confidence that the popular voice will pro- 
nounce in favor of new men and new nnd more favorable conditions for the growth 
of industry, the extension of trade, the employment and due reward of labor and of 
capital, and the general welfare of the whole country. 

BALLOTING. — The first ballot was had on the evening of 
the loth. It showed a strong lead for Cleveland. It required 
547 votes to nominate. The Convention adjourned till the nth, 
when the balloting was resumed. 

First. Second. 

Cleveland 392 683 

Randall 78 4 

Thurman 88 4 

Bayard 170 81^ 

McDonald 56 2 

Hoadly 3 

Carlisle 27 

Tilden I 

Hendricks I 45^ 

Flower 4 

Total. 820 820 

The result of the second and successful ballot was announced 
at 1. 10 p. M. on Friday, nth. The ballot showed considerable 
gain for Cleveland, but not proportionally enough to nominate, 
till Pennsylvania was called. Up to this time there had been a 
considerable swing toward Hendricks, whose name came spon- 
taneously before the Convention. He had reached a strength of 
124^ votes, while Bayard had I50j^, Thurman 60, and Cleve- 
land 475. When Pennsylvania cast 42 of her votes for Cleveland 
the assurance of his nomination was such that the preceding 
States mostly changed their votes to him, with the result above 
indicated. A motion to make the nomination unanimous was 
triumphantly carried. 




LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

HON. STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 

|x\RENTAGE. — Governor Cleveland sprang from an old 
and distinguished New England ancestry. It is a line 
which is plentifully interspersed with specimens of thor- 
ough culture, high intellectual achievement, and true 
American instinct. His father, Richard F. Cleveland, was 
a Connecticut clergyman of the Presbyterian denomination, and 
different branches of the family held prominent pulpit places in 
the Presbyterian, Congregational and Episcopalian Churches. 
They were all alike public-spirited men, intensely loyal to their 
convictions, and firmly attached to our free institutions. 

The Governor's immediate ancestors formed a Connecticut 
branch of the large family. His great-grandfather was Aaron 
Cleveland, who lived and died in or near the town of Norwich, 
though born in East Haddam. He was a clergyman of consid- 
erable power and reputation, but with a turn for political life. 
A large and admiring constituency gave him opportunity to 
indulge his inclination by sending him to the State Legislature. 
The two sons of Aaron Cleveland who are most conspicuously 
mentioned were Charles and William. Charles Cleveland, great- 
uncle of the Governor, had a daughter who married Samuel 
Coxe. Their son, Alfred Cleveland Coxe, is now the Bishop of 
Western New York. The other son, William Cleveland, lived 
in Norwich most of his life, where he carried on the business of 
a silversmith. At a late period he went to Buffalo, N. Y., to live, 
that he might be near other members of his family who resided 
there. He died there in 1837. 

(9) 



10 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

William's son, Richard F. Cleveland, and father of the Gov- 
ernor, was born in Norwich, Jan. 19, 1804. He entered Yale 
College at the early age of sixteen years and -graduated in 1824, 
He then went to Baltimore to teach school, in the meantime car- 
rying on a series of studies designed to fit him for the ministry. 
In 1828 he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church, 
and immediately took charge of the congregation at Haddam, 
Conn. While teaching in Baltimore he made the acquaintance 
of a Miss Neal, whom he married after he had been preaching 
about a year. 

The Rev. Richard F. Cleveland was a man of high intellectual 
attainments, and a most devoted student. Study was a love be- 
yond any thought of worldly advancement. In the course of his 
ministerial work, and soon after his marriage, he accepted a call 
at Caldwell, N. J., where he officiated for some years. Thence 
he removed to Fayetteville, Onondaga co., N. Y. After a time 
he moved to Clinton, Oneida co., and thence to Holland Patent, 
in the same county, where he died, Oct. I, 1853. His wife, the 
Governor's mother, lived till July 19, 1882, almost long enough 
to see her illustrious son elected to the highest office in the gift 
of the citizens of the Empire State. 

EARLY LIFE. — Governor Cleveland was born in Caldwell, 
Essex CO., N. J., on March 18, 1837. He is therefore in the 
forty-eighth year of his age, and, if elected, will be among the 
youngest of our Presidents. He was named Stephen Grover 
Cleveland, though popularly known as Grover Cleveland, the 
first part of his Christian name having fallen into disuse. 

He was the fifth in a family of nine children, the others being 
Mrs. Hastings, William N. Cleveland, Mrs. Wm. E. Hoyt, Rich- 
ard C. Cleveland, Mrs. N. B. Bacon, Lewis F. Cleveland, Mrs. 
L. Youmans, and Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, the latter unmar- 
ried, a lady of strong intellectual capacity, and a prominent 
woman suffrage advocate. 

The two-story-and-a-half white house in which the Governor 
was born is still standing. At the age of three years he left the 
scene of his birth to accompany the family to their new home in 
Fayetteville, N. Y. Here he grew to stout and active boyhood, 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. H 

amid the advantages then common to village life, not the least 
of which was good common schooling. 

At the age of fourteen he desired to supplement his common 
school education with an academic one. His father was some- 
what averse to this step, on the score of expense, and because he 
desired his boys to become self-supporting as soon as possible. 
Accepting the parental verdict as final, the youth started out to 
earn his own living, and push his own way in life. 

He entered the village store at a salary of fifty dollars for the 
first year, which sum was to be made one hundred for the second 
year, in case he proved efficient. The boy's pluck and energy 
did not fail him. His record in this humble position bespoke 
the coming man. It was one of simple, unswerving integrity 
and untiring loyalty to the interests of his employer. In public 
place, and in mature years, it has ever been one of faithful ad- 
herence to deep-rooted conviction and much-admired devotion 
to the interests of the people who honored him with their confi- 
dence and support. The testimony is unimpeachable that what- 
ever the boy found to do in the capacity in which he was first 
called to serve he did with all his heart, and that in the earliest 
chapter of his history of self-helpfulness and business independ- 
ence there is indelibly written down a reputation for bravery of 
spirit, fidelity to trust, and candor of character, which has out- 
lived the intermediate years. 

A STUDENT. — The quality of courage, inherent in his com- 
position, and of ambition to acquire a broader education, were 
seconded by economic habits ; so that after a year or two spent 
in the Fayetteville store, and when his father moved to Clinton, 
the youth rejoiced in a realization of his dreams by being per- 
mitted to attend the academy in the village. Here he made 
rapid progress in learning, for his purse was meagre, and oppor- 
tunity long coveted was to be turned to speedy account. His 
father, with a large family to support, and only a limited income 
to rely upon, could not supplement his efforts to acquire a higher 
education. The path to success must be cut out of the hard rock 
of limited circumstances by the boy's own ingenious and perse- 
vering hand. Right well he held the chisel, and right well di- 



12 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

rected the stroke. Acquisition with him was easy, and his aca- 
demic career profitable, though brief. Education under such 
circumstances may not be so full as when plenty of time and 
money is at command, but it is better appreciated, and often far 
more practical. Moreover, it is an incentive to higher endeavor, 
for both youth and manhood are at their best when it is under- 
stood that the price of victory is hard blows with the weapons 
of one's o^n earning. 

A TEACHER. — The breaking up of the paternal home in 
Clinton, by the removal of his father to Holland Patent, a village 
of some five or six hundred people, fifteen miles north of Utica, 
ended his academic career. In this new field the father preached 
but three Sundays, when death ended his pastorate. Grover 
first heard of his father's death while walking with his sister in 
the streets of Utica. The sad event was followed by the final 
break-up of a large family, which a loving hand had held to- 
gether and inspired with a truly Christian spirit. The children 
all sought honorable walks in life, and even those who have not 
found renown are in possession of that independence, peace, and 
comfort which often count for more than fame. 

As Rev. Richard F. Cleveland died Oct. I, 1853, the son, Gro- 
ver, must have been in his seventeenth year. Though young to 
brave life without a father's counsel, he struck eastward and 
found himself in the city of New York. Here he seems to have 
been fortunate in securing a situation as teacher in the New 
York City Blind Asylum, where he had a record as a devoted 
instructor and a great reader and student. His tastes, or ambi- 
tions, were not, however, satisfied in this confined situation. 
The world of the school-room was not large enough for him. 
There were other things in store, and he would seek them. Two 
years ended his teaching career, and he started for the West. 

A LAW STUDENT. — This journey was without definite 
plan, and even without destination, except in so far as the per- 
suasions df a friend had induced him to inspect the city of 
Cleveland, Ohio, and try his fortune in what was then regarded 
as one of the most growthy and promising cities of the West. 
The coincidence of the name with his own augured well, if boy- 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 13 

ish fancy were to play a part in establishing his fortune. He 
therefore made that city his objective point. Fortunately, he 
stopped for a time in Buffalo, where he found a maternal uncle, 
Lewis F. Allen, a man held in high esteem in Erie county, one 
who had been honored by many public positions, and who in 
turn had honored them. 

Mr. Allen was very favorably impressed with his nephew and 
young adventurer. He persuaded him that Buffalo offered as 
many opportunities for success as any more remote place, and 
kindly proffered him much good counsel and encouragement. 
Young Grover's predilections for the West were overcome. He 
resolved to stay with his uncle. Mr. Allen was then a noted 
breeder of blooded stock-cattle. His farms in the neighborhood 
of Buffalo were extensive, and his herds had a reputation for 
purity of quality which was not limited by State lines. Desiring 
to perfect his operations, he placed young Grover in charge of 
the herd-books, at the modest sum of fifty dollars a year and 
found, but with the understanding that he was to look around 
him for other occupation in case this proved irksome. The old 
uncle evidently knew that a young man with aspirations for 
Western life, and with ambitions to succeed, could not be ab- 
ruptly switched off his line of intent, unless he himself largely 
acquiesced in the diversion. 

Besides, the youth had already signified his intention to make 
himself a lawyer. This ambition he soon found means to grat- 
ify. The entry of herd varieties, the noting of pedigrees for 
Alderneys, short horns, Durhams, etc., was not such sleepy work 
as to close his eyes to chances for getting on, even though the 
location was two miles beyond the centre of the city. On the 
contrary, it was a work which gave him the control of much 
leisure. This he resolved to turn to account. 

He made application to the law firm of Messrs. Rogers, Bowen 
& Rogers, in Buffalo, to be entered as a student. Success fol- 
lowed the application. He had now the double care of editing 
an important stock book and drinking in the lore of Blackstone 
and Coke upon Littleton. From farm to office, and back, he 
walked each day, winter and summer, till he passed his final 
examination and was admitted to the bar. 



14 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

This period of acquisition, under difificulties which would have 
appalled a youth with less pluck, served as a training time for 
the qualities which were to round out the able practitioner and 
assure his professional success. The privations of the penniless 
novitiate were over. His receptive mind had made the labor of 
learninf^ light, and this was the one joy which had pervaded the 
long, difficult and weary pupilage. 

AS A LA WYER. — The date of his admission to the bar was 
1859, he then being in his twenty-third year. Such was the 
confidence of the firm in his ability and integrity that he re- 
mained with it for three or four years after his admission. He 
thus added to previous training a large experience in active prac- 
tice, and came to be noted for his close preparation of cases, his 
clear and forcible method of statement, and his untiring adher- 
ence to the cause he espoused. The elements of growth which 
bore him over the obstacles of previous years were now lifting 
him into honorable competition with the older lights of the bar. 
If these elements, as they now cropped out, were to be reduced 
to speech, they must be enumerated as exhaustive preparation, 
stern adhesion to purpose, avoidance of legal quirk, just and 
faithful representation, sterling honesty in details, loyal adhesion 
to clientage. Back of these were a commanding presence, a gra- 
cious demeanor, a fervid style of eloquence, which bespoke the 
confidence of courts and juries, and stamped him as one calcu- 
lated to win as much through worth as energy. Says one of 
his early associates in Buffalo : ** Grover Cleveland won our 
admiration by his three traits of indomitable industry, unpreten- 
tious courage and unswerving honesty. I never saw a more 
thorough man at anything he undertook. Whatever.the subject 
was he was reticent until he had mastered all its bearings and 
made up his own mind, and then nothing could swerve him from 
his convictions. It was this quality of intellectual integrity more 
than anything else perhaps, that made him afterwards listened 
to and respected when men with greater dash and brilliancy who 
were opposed to him were applauded and forgotten." 

In 1863, the honors which could not long be withheld from a 
man of his solidity of character and pronounced professional 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 15 

status, fell upon him in the shape of a call to the position of 
Assistant District Attorney of Erie County. The call came at 
the instance of his associates at the bar, who had united in a 
recommendation which was almost unanimous. This was the 
true beginning of his public career. It is significant that it had 
an origin in a confidence which was widely diffused, and untram- 
meled by creed or politics. It was an unquestioned, unlimited 
confidence, such as goes out only to those whose manhood is 
their guarantee of freedom from belittling influences and false 
actions. He was a Democrat, and had passed from boyhood to 
manhood as such. But while imbued with lively party convic- 
tions and given to earnest advocacy of vital party tenets, he never 
stooped to the use of questionable methods, and never forgot for 
a moment the proper attitude of parties toward the State, the 
nation, and the institutions which inlay and overshadow all. 
There was no asperity in his politics, and none of that narrow, 
intense partyism which estranges friends, sanctions corrupt prac- 
tices, or refuses to see any good in men and things outside of 
clannish limits. In the hour of war he placed country before 
party. In the hour of peace he recognized the uses of party as 
legitimate and purifying, provided partyism did not run away 
with and pervert honorable and acceptable methods. 

For all of the above reasons, his associates at the bar and the 
citizens of his town found it fitting to honor him with his first 
public trust. While serving in the capacity of Assistant District 
Attorney he was drafted, and promptly furnished a substitute. 
His career in this office extended over a period of three years. 
How acceptably he had served was shown by the fact that he 
received the nomination of his party for the position of District 
Attorney in 1865. His opponent on the Republican ticket, 
Lyman K. Bass, was successful, after a spirited contest, in which 
Mr. Cleveland showed himself much stronger than his party. 

On the first of January, 1866, he formed a law partnership with 
the late J. V. Vanderpool, which continued till January, 1869. 
It then ended by the withdrawal of Mr. Vanderpool to fill the 
position of Police Justiceship to which he had been elected. 
After this dissolution a new kw-firm was formed, known as 



16 BUILDING AND RULING THE REI'UBLIC. 

Laning, Cleveland and Folsom, the head of it being Hon. A. P. 
Laning, State Senator. While in this firm and in the enjoyment 
of a lucrative practice he was called upon to serve again in a 
public capacity. This time it was as Sheriff of Erie County. 
The office is not usually regarded as one requiring more than 
average ability to fill it, nor does it ordinarily open a field for the 
exercise of very high or commanding qualities. But in this in- 
stance, not only the Democratic, but a conspicuous factor in the 
Republican party, had an object to accomplish which could be 
done in no other way and through no other agency. Gross 
favoritism and glaring corruption had crept into the administra- 
tion of the office. The management had become an offense to 
every element of justice and defiant of every reform remedy. 
The majority of the dominant party in the county was usually 
large, running from three to six thousand. Democracy alone 
had a poor show to correct crying evils. It was only by putting 
up a man for the place whose character was in itself a guarantee 
of the reforms demanded that they could hope to draw the Re- 
pubHcan contingent necessary to secure his election. Their choice 
fell on Grover Cleveland as the man for the emergency. He 
would necessarily have to make a great personal and professional 
sacrifice if he succeeded, but he was a man who shrank from no 
consideration of expediency when a great public interest had to 
be subserved. The purification of a pest-house disturbs the 
stereotyped order of things and puts society and individuals to 
much present discomfort. But the general good must be con- 
sulted, and he is not a hero who refuses to second every effort 
to further the sanative and social welfare of his community. 

Full of this laudably sacrificial spirit and with the determina- 
tion to introduce marked and lasting reforms into a position 
whose status had been shamefully lowered, he stood for the 
election, and was flatteringly successful. His administration 
was what was expected of a man of his integrity and firmness. 
He broke up corrupt practices, wiped out the shame which 
clouded the office and gave to .execution of county affairs a new 
direction and more significant meaning. He showed that dig- 
nity could be made to crown the actions of an official, even 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 17 

though the office was that of sheriff. The object of his election 
was fully met by his vigor and straightforwardness. At the end 
of his term he returned the office to the majority party as a model 
piece of county machinery and an evidence of what reforms could 
be achieved if officials would only keep in view the best interests 
of those they are called upon to serve. His administration was 
not forgotten in Buffalo. The man for this emergency would 
prove the man for others, when the need should become equally 
great. 

His election to the Sheriffalty occurred in the fall of 1869, 
His acceptance put an end to his partnership in the law-firm of 
Laning, Cleveland and Folsom. At the expiration of his official 
term he had to look around for other connections. Soon a part- 
nership was formed with Lyman K. Bass, his old opponent in 
the race for District Attorney, and Wilson S. Bissell, the firm 
being known as that of Bass, Cleveland and Bissell. 

He was now back on favorite professional ground, after a 
diversion which had brought into conspicuous view his masterly 
executive qualities and familiarized the Western end of the State 
with an administration whose vigor was only surpassed by its 
purity. In a short time Mr. Bass removed from Buffalo and the 
law-firm became Cleveland, Bissell and Sicard. It took rank at 
once as among the foremost, if not the foremost, in Western New 
York, a reputation which was secured and maintained by the 
large acquaintance, high standing, and recognized legal ability 
of the head of the firm. Their office was in spacious and promi- 
nent quarters on Main street, where each member had his own 
library, consulting room and other facilities for carrying on the 
different branches of their rapidly growing business. Cleveland 
and Bissell were both very large men physically, and they were 
often jokingly called the heavy weights of the firm. Both were 
dignified and affable in demeanor, and aside from their reputation 
as sound and successful lawyers, were calculated to attract a large 
clientage and inspire it with the utmost confidence. 

In this partnership Mr. Cleveland regarded himself as settled 
for life. Success was crowning his efforts and gratifying his am- 
bitions. He has been heard to say that he was content with his 



18 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

partners and his practice. Had he been left with them, he need 
never have entertained a fear that his merits would have been 
overlooked by the great public, nor that all the rewards of indus- 
try, honesty, and ability would have failed to cluster in his path. 

Says one who was well acquainted with him at this period : 
" It was while thus associated that Grover Cleveland achieved his 
distinction as a lawyer second to few in the Western part of the 
State for legal acumen and intellectual honesty. His jury and 
bench trials were distinguished by clear views, direct, simple logic, 
and a thorough mastery of all the intricacies of the cases, and 
his invariable avoidance of extrinsic issues and purely technical 
devices secured for him the respect of his own profession and 
the admiration of the public." 

AS MAYOR. — Destiny forbade a long continuance of this 
smoothly running tide. Municipal politics in Buffalo had as- 
sumed a shape repugnant to the better citizens of both parties. 
Powerful rings existed which partitioned offices and their spoils 
and perpetuated themselves with autocratic certainty and audac- 
ity. Ingenious and corrupting cliques in both parties conspired 
to plunder and divide. Perhaps the city was not unlike others 
in this respect, except as to the enormity of the evil and the dif- 
ficulty of a hopeful attack upon it. He must possess more than 
ordinary bravery and tenacity of purpose who ventured to deal 
the first blow at a situation turreted with power and manned by 
skilled political manipulators. Redemptory effort, to be effective, 
must come from a source above all suspicion, must be as persis- 
tent as a forge-hammer, and regardless of consequences so far 
as they affected persons, parties or questions of sheer expediency. 
All during the year 1881 the cry for local reform, which it was 
well understood could only come by poh'tical revolution, went 
up. Was there a man in the midst popular enough to place 
experiment beyond reach of failure ? Was there one indomi- 
table enough to venture into the dens where the lions of power 
divided and devoured their dark and secret conquests ? 

It seemed that there was one. His party singled him out, at 
least the true men of his party. The true men of the Republi- 
can party said he was the man of all others best calculated to 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 19 

meet the requirements of the difficult situation. They heartily- 
seconded his selection, and joined hands with a will to give him 
a triumph at the polls. In a Republican stronghold, and against 
combinations which reached far toward the centre of his own 
party, he was chosen Mayor by 5000 majority ; running far in 
advance of the State ticket. If the election were a testimonial to 
his fortitude, integrity and popularity, unexampled in Buffalo his- 
tory, or even in the history of the State, what must the net re- 
sults of his administration stand for? November, 188 1, was 
morning in a city whose politics had been a Cimmerian mid- 
night. 

His mayoralty was in the exact line of that pronounced senti- 
ment to which he owed the honors of his election. It fully justi- 
fied the expectations that were created by his well-known char- 
acter and previous public record. The nomination had come to 
him unsought and undesired, the election by that spontaneity 
which ever marks a great popular and tidal resolve, and prints 
its meaning so that even he that runneth cannot mistake it. 

The man and his methods were now to stand the test. He 
was happily untrammeled in his choice of the latter. His own 
good judgment was to be his criterion. This judgment had been 
greatly widened and strengthened by his practice at the bar, and 
his ample opportunities to study men and political ways and 
measures. As to aught else there was no fear, for his turn was 
executive, his nature sterling and invincible. He was his own 
counsellor. With characteristic industry he passed the first 
weeks after election in studying the details of every department 
of the city administration and mapping a programme from 
which there should be no departure either under vituperation 
or applause. 

His inaugural address sounded the key-note of administration. 
" We hold," said he, " the money of the people in our hands, to 
be used for their purposes and to further their interests as mem- 
bers of the municipality, and it is quite apparent that, when any 
part of the funds with which the taxpayers have thus intrusted us 
are diverted to other purposes, or when, by design or neglect, we 
allow a greater sum to be applied to any municipal purpose than 



20 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

is necessary, we have to that extent violated our duty. There 
surely is no difference in his duties and obligations, whether a 
person is intrusted with the money of one man or many. And 
yet it sometimes appears as though the office-holder assumes 
that a different rule of fidelity prevails between him and the tax- 
payers than that which should regulate his conduct, when, as an 
individual, he holds the money of his neighbor." 

Such was the great need of reform in the city, the desperation 
of the battle to be fought, the explicit character of his pledges, 
the firmness of the man, the curiosity to hote the outcome of 
the administrative struggle, that both parties throughout the 
entire State looked on Buffalo and its mayoralty as a prime part 
of a political drama, whose further enactment in municipal high 
places for their purification and enlightenment should depend on 
its success where first introduced. The Buffalo reform move- 
ment was to be not only for Buffalo, but it was to be a criterion 
by which all municipal reforms were to be graduated, after which 
all should pattern, through which all should derive hope and 
encouragement. 

It is not in stations of glittering magnitude that men are put 
to the severest tests. " The qualities," says Socrates, " that fit 
a man to rule a city, fit him to rule an empire." Indeed, it is 
true that public responsibility is deepest, and official worth most 
radically tested, the nearer the office lies to the people. This is 
what makes municipal government such a delicate and difficult 
thing. The fortitude, the knowledge of men and situations, the 
integrity, the statesmanlike grasp, which are necessary, in a 
municipal executive, to assure pure and acceptable administration, 
are no more largely required, and certainly never so constantly 
called into active requisition, where the executive is even that 
of a State or nation. 

Scarcely had he launched his administration when it drew the 
concentrated fire of his political enemies. The City Council 
was against him, with its love of jobbery and adhesion to prac- 
tices he would uproot and discard. The old rings encircled him, 
either to gather him into deceptive embrace or crush him in 
their deadening coils. A street-cleaning contract, as immense 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 21 

as it was Iniquitous, went through the Council. It was the 
grand opportunity of the pilfering politician to enrich himself 
and friends. It was a type of the jobs which had impoverished 
the city and brought its administration into discredit. It was, 
moreover, the kind of enactment which cemented municipal 
influence and made it hazardous to his popularity for an execu- 
tive officer to crush it with his veto. But the veto came, and in 
this instance promptly and with telling effect. It was as if a 
bomb had suddenly burst in the midst of the plunderers. " This 
is a time," said he, in his veto message, " for plain speech, and 
my objection to your action shall be plainly stated. I regard it 
as the culmination of a most barefaced, impudent and shameless 
scheme to betray the interests of the people and to worse than 
squander the public money. We are fast gaining positions in 
the grades of public stewardship. There is no middle ground. 
Those who are not for the people either in or out of your honor- 
able body, are against them, and should be treated accord- 
ingly." 

The people, who knew their man before, now knew him 
better. In fact, his political enemies knew him quite too well. 
His was not the stuff that tricksters and cowards are made of, 
but the sterling metal which enters into men coined and stamped 
for great occasions. His action was received with the greatest 
favor by his party friends, and by the friends of purity and 
decorum throughout the county and State. It was a harbinger 
of other victories far more significant, and an earnest that muni- 
cipal reform was at last within reach of a long aggrieved people. 
He was heralded far and wide as the strong, incorruptible, in- 
vincible hero of an emergency before which others had quailed 
and fell. The results of this single veto to the city were of 
incalculable benefit. Its moral effect was felt in every depart- 
ment. The political atmosphere was freshened. From an eco- 
nomical standpoint, the saving was immense. Under a subse- 
quent ordinance, and the contracts based on it, the work was 
done for ;^ 100,000 less money than at first proposed. 

It is hardly necessary for the exemplification of Grover 
Cleveland's fortitude, integrity, and wonderful executive ability, 



22 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

to go into painstaking and tedious details of his mayoralty. We 
understand why he was chosen and what was expected of him. 
A thousand instances of heroic and timely application of the 
power with which he was vested would not magnify the impor- 
tance of the verdict of approval which awaited the closing hours 
of his administration. Nor would such serve to further illumi- 
nate those qualities of manhood he was now seen to possess in 
a degree which astounded and overawed his opponents. Yet 
mention must be made of his secon^d struggle with the powerful 
and corrupting influences about him. This was a job to build a 
large connecting sewer. The issue was sharply joined, the con- 
tention bitter. The mayor's pluck and earnestness won, and his 
second victory was far more significant than the first. It saved 
;^8oo,ooo to the city. Altogether the first six months of his 
administration saved to the city an amount estimated at ;^i,ooo,- 
OOO. This magnificent aggregate might be safely doubled, if the 
entire term of his mayoralty were to be considered. True, the 
rings were daunted and never rallied to other audacious attacks 
on the treasury, yet the mayor found frequent uses for his veto 
power in order to preserve the position he had won and drive 
home on his opponents the wholesome effects of his reformatory 
teaching. Not a single ordinance was ever passed over his 
veto. His veto messages were models of directness and exact- 
ness. 

We search American political annals in vain for an example 
of municipal administration so vigorous, effective and productive 
of permanent good, as that which Grover Cleveland gave to 
Buffalo. His comprehension of a delicate and difficult situation, 
his mastery of details, his development of an executive policy, 
his firm yet dignified command of the powers at his disposal, his 
persistent following up of every advantage gained, and finally his 
turning of the government back to the people, washed as to its 
shame and purified as to its corruption, constitute a chapter in 
his life whose reading is inspiriting to both old and young, and 
whose contemplation ought to be a source of pride to any man, 
no matter with what; high honors his after life was crowned. 
Let it not be forgotten that he had made no quest of the. honors 



STEPHEN GROYER CLEVELAND. 23 

of office. No election fanfaronade attended his candidacy. No 
single act of self-glorification or self-advancement entered into 
his ministrations. A good and true man found a trust to be 
executed in a plain, honest, faithful, industrious way. The way 
was that of the people, and they neither failed to remember nor 
to thank and honor. While a local constituency were ringing 
the plaudit, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ! " the 
people of an entire State were getting ready to say, " Come up 
unto higher places and honors." 

While yet mayor, and in the spring of 1882, he had occasion 
to testify to the American spirit regnant within him as presiding 
officer of a mass-meeting called to take action on the case of 
Irish-Americans then aggrieved by English tyranny and actually 
suffering from imprisonment in Ireland. As is well known, our 
foreign policy was regarded as too feeble to reach these cases 
and to make American citizenship respected abroad. Our min- 
ister to England seemed to be indifferent to the fate of those 
naturalized Irishmen who, on a visit to their native land and on 
natural expression of sympathy with their long-suffering coun- 
trymen, had fallen into the category of suspects, and had been, 
without hearing, deprived of their liberty by incarceration in 
British bastiles. Neither did there seem to be a sentiment at 
home sufficiently pronounced to demand the rights indubitably 
attached to the name of American. The Buffalo meeting was 
one of protest against a policy of weakness and timidity on the 
part of our government. It was directly in the interest of our 
citizens of foreign birth. One who had not their cause at heart, 
a mere politician with selfish aims, or with fears for his popularity, 
a trimmer for place and without character or substantial convic- 
tions, might have remanded such a matter to the Secretary of 
State at Washington, or complacently declined to interfere with 
a question which concerned only a fraction of our populace. 
But Mayor Cleveland was as ready to stand as the representa- 
tive of American citizenship in its broadest and fullest significance 
as to throttle corruption in his adopted city. As chairman of 
this meeting, he pointed out, from a strictly legal and constitu- 
tional standpoint, and with a clearness and precision which always 



24 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

characterized his presentation of pleas, the common right of 
native-born and adopted citizens of this country to protection 
from the Government at Washington the world over. Then, 
proceeding in a strain of earnest and impassioned eloquence, 
which captured every hearer, he enunciated the following doc- 
trine, which, if incorporated as an American citizen plank into a 
political platform, any candidate for even so high an office as 
President might be proud to stand upon : 

It needed not the statute which is now the law of the land, declaring that " all 
naturalized citizens while in foreign lands are entitled to and shall receive from this 
Government the same protection of person and property which is accorded to 
native-born citizens," to voice the policy of our nation. In all lands where the 
semblance of liberty is preserved, the right of a person arrested to a speedy accu- 
sation and trial is, or ought to be, a fundamental law, as it is a rule of civilization. 
At any rate, we hold it to be so, and this is one of the rights which we undertake 
to guarantee to any native-bom or naturalized citizen of ours, whether he be im- 
prisoned by order of the Czar of Russia or under the pretext of a law administered 
for the benefit of the landed aristocracy of England. We do not claim to make 
laws for other countries, but we do insist that whatsoever those laws may be, they 
shall, in the interests of human freedom and the rights of mankind, so far as they 
involve the liberty of our citizens, be speedily administered. We have a right to 
say, and do say, that mere suspicion without examination on trial is not sufficient to 
justify the long imprisonment of a citizen of America. Other nations may permit 
their citizens to be thus imprisoned — ours will not. And this in effect has been 
solemnly declared by statute. We have met here to-night to consider this subject 
and to inquire into the cause and the reasons and the justice of the imprisonment 
of certain of our fellow- citizens now held in British prisons without the semblance 
of a trial or legal examination. Our law declares that the Government shall act 
in such cases. But the people are the creators of the Government. The undaunted 
apostle of the Christian religion, imprisoned and persecuted, appealing centuries 
ago to the Roman law and the rights of Roman citizenship, boldly demanded, " Is 
it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" So, too, 
might we ask, appealing to the law of our land and the laws of civilization, " Is it 
lawful that these our fellows be imprisoned who are American citizens and 
uncondemned ? " 

AS GOVERNOR.— In 1882 the political situation in New 
York State was peculiar. The Republican managers had nomi- 
nated a ticket from Governor down, which did not reflect the 
sentiment of their party. It was believed to be directly in the 
interest of President Arthur, and to be his attempt to assume, or 
rather retain, control of the party machinery in the State. Fur- 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 25 

ther, the methods resorted to in convention, in order to secure 
the nomination of favorites, were regarded as unfair and dishon- 
orable. They were tricks, whose results were bound to recoil 
on their perpetrators. There was a revolt all along the line, and 
a determination to rebuke a procedure which savored of corrup- 
tion and punish the principals who expected to find preferment 
in a resort to it. 

Democratic candidates were not wanting who were anxious to 
take advantage of the situation. They saw in Republican schism 
an opportunity for triumph which was tempting to every adven- 
turer. But the wiser heads of the party saw further than this. 
And without disparagement to the older, it must be said that 
the younger elements of the party composed to a large extent 
these wiser heads. They saw that the Republican candidates — 
especially Mr. Folger, candidate for Governor — were personally 
unobjectionable, and that the protest was not so much against 
men as against the ring methods which secured their nomination 
and the objects to be gained by such nominations. They also 
saw that a weak and frivolous Democratic nomination, one 
made on the pretext that anybody could be elected, would only 
serve to drive back the protesting Republicans into the deserted 
ranks and endanger the entire situation. Again, they saw that 
in order to add emphasis to the protest they must present in 
their candidate an assurance that, if elected, a perfectly pure 
State administration would ensue. The opportunity they saw 
was not one for a mere man ; but for their party, the people, the 
entire State. They knew full well the difficulties attending 
gubernatorial administration in New York, the traps and pitfalls 
laid for honest men, the temptations to go astray, the impossi- 
bilities, one may say, of a perfectly straight official career, unless 
the incumbent should come clad in tried armor. 

In looking over the interesting situation, the eyes of the 
party naturally turned to Grover Cleveland. In many respects 
the State outlook was like that which preceded his call to the 
mayoralty of Buffalo. At any rate, they saw in the man who 
was winning the encomiums of both parties for his straightfor- 
ward impartial, and business-like municipal administration, the 



26 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

candidate they wanted for the highest office in the State. His 
was a character above suspicion at the start, and one which 
would bear closest scrutiny even under the calcium light of a 
campaign. He had been tried in the severest of crucial fires, 
and no element of a successful executive had been found wanting. 
He was known, too, within and without his party. All in all, 
Cleveland presented in himself and in his record the very guar- 
antee the Democracy desired for themselves, and also to offer to 
the Republicans. So he was placed on their ticket as candidate 
for governor against Mr. Folger, one of the best known men in 
the State, and one of the ablest. 

The campaign was an interesting one from the beginning. The 
missiles of the enemy flew thick and fast, but failed to wound or 
even hit the Democratic nominee. He grew stronger and 
stronger from the very day of his nomination. The enthusiasm 
his name kindled in his own party held it to a strict allegiance 
and drew an overflowing support. Study of his character by 
the protesting Republicans, and favorable knowledge of him, 
both as a man and official, attracted thousands directly to his 
standard and led other thousands. to show their preference for 
him over their own nominee by silent acquiescence. Both par- 
ties, in the State and nation, were astounded at the result. It 
could hardly be called popular election — it was rather popular 
revolution. Never was the wisdom of a nomination so emphati- 
cally vindicated. Never did the American people voluntarily 
tender so lavish an ovation to one whom they honored and 
trusted. His vote was 535,318, as against 342,464 for his oppo- 
nent, leaving him a plurality of 192,854, and a clear majority 
over all opposition of 155,097. The height of the wave which 
bore the new Governor from his home in the extreme western 
part of the State to the capital in the extreme eastern part, and 
which strewed hills and valleys with Republican wreckage, was 
unprecedented in political history. 

The movement which made him governor, like that which 
had made him mayor, was not of his origination. The office 
had in both instances sought the man, as it should do in a 
republic, and as it ever will do where purely unselfish adminis- 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. . 27 

tration is expected. Nor had he stooped to favor his chances of 
election. He was in the hands of the people, and his cause 
was their cause. 

He was inaugurated, without any ostentatious display, on the 
first Tuesday of January, 1883. He thoroughly understood the 
political situation, and speedily addressed himself to the reforms 
which he knew were expected of him. His inaugural was brief, 
forcible and happy — the duplicate of the man in vigor and sin- 
cerity. It meant business. Touching the civil service of the 
State, he said : 

Subordinates iti public place should be selected and retained for their efEciency, 
and not because they may be used to accomplish partisan ends. The people have a 
right to demand here,, as in cases of private employment, that their money be 
paid to those who vv^ill render the best service in return, and that the appoint- 
ment to and tenure of sucli places should depend upon ability and merit. If the 
clerks and assistants in public departments were paid the same compensation and 
required to do the same amount of work as those employed in prudently conducted 
private establishments, the anxiety to hold these public places would be much 
diminished and the cause of civil-service reform materially aided. Tlie expendi- 
ture of money to influence the action of the people at the polls or to secure legisla- 
tion is calculated to excite the gravest concern. "When this pernicious agency is 
successfully employed a representative form of government becomes a sham, and 
laws passed under its baleful influence cease to protect, but are made the means 
by which the rights of the people are sacrificed and the public treasuiy despoiled. 
It is useless and foolish to shut our eyes to the fact that this evil exists among us, 
and the party which leads in an honest effort to return to better and purer methods 
will receive the confidence of our citizens and secure their support. It is willful 
blindness not to see that the people care but little for party obligations, when they 
are invoked to countenance and sustain fraudulent and corrupt practices. And it 
is well for our country and for the purification of politics that the people, at times 
fully roused to danger, remind their leaders that party methods should be something 
more than a means used to answer the purposes of those who profit by political 
occupation. 

The first acts of an executive calculated to invite attention and 
criticism, as well as to foreshadow the policy of his administration, 
are his appointments to office. There is no public duty so 
delicate, none in which mistakes recoil so quickly. It is set 
down to Governor Cleveland's credit that his first appoint- 
ments were made with rare good judgment. Political friend 
and foe indorsed them as the wisest selections possible, and 
saw at once in them an earnest of the kind of administration 
they had hoped for and been led to expect. 



28 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Two places were of peculiar importance — that of Superintend- 
ent of Public Works and Commissioner of the New Capitol. 
Public money had been running through these like water 
through a sieve. They were centres of immense patronage and 
power, and were consequently much coveted by those who 
would use them for political purposes. Both offices employed 
hundreds of men. For each of them Governor Cleveland 
selected a man fitted by practice and special knowledge to do 
the required work. They were both outspoken, square-dealing 
experts in the business they were called upon to conduct. Since 
their appointment the ugly rumors of corruption which used to 
centre about their places have ceased, and the people are satis- 
fied that order and economy prevail where once all was confu- 
sion, extravagance and distrust. 

All other appointments were characterized by the same inde- 
pendence and close discernment of fitness and character. In so 
far as these acts could contribute to energy and purity of admin- 
istration, it was manifest that Governor Cleveland was bound to 
prove an exceptional executive, that he had within him a pro- 
bity, fearlessness and business address before which the better 
sentiment of the State must bow with respect. 

It must not be supposed that he escaped the vulgar criticism 
of those who could not use him for their ambitious and corrupt 
purposes. No great, unselfish, direct, single-purposed man can 
act either his business or political part without incurring the 
opposition, and even inviting the censure, of the smaller and 
narrower herd who delight in detraction and feed on enmities. 
The measure of admiration for Governor Cleveland, while a can- 
didate before the Chicago Convention, was well expressed by a 
prominent delegate who said, " I love the man for the enemies 
he has made." It is not complimentary to our pohtical society 
to feel that true greatness is often an invitation for envious dis- 
crimination and malignant attack. Yet we fear it must be ac- 
cepted as true that those virtues which we most seek and prize 
in public men are the very ones whose persistent exercise pro- 
voke the bitterest hostility of the tricky and unconscionable few. 
Out of the million voters of the Empire State, only a modicum 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 29 

of mere trading politicians chose to withhold their admiration 
for Governor Cleveland's energetic and business-like policy, as 
foreshadowed and proved by his executive appointments. He 
showed in them all a keen analysis of character and a knowledge 
of official fitness which were in the highest degree complimen- 
tary. In every instance the result proved the wisdom of his 
choice, and in no respect has his administration been more pow- 
erfully vindicated. 

In attention to the details of legislation Governor Cleveland 
has proven himself constant, guarded and thoughtful. His mes- 
sages, models of terseness and vigor, have abounded in clear-cut, 
practical advice, so that even the most wayward could not mis- 
take his spirit and meaning. It may well be questioned whether 
any State administration ever crowded into so brief a space so 
many substantial and far-reaching reforms. And what is more 
worthy of note, this monumental work was marred in but kw 
places by idle, irrelevant and impracticable legislation, owing to 
his watchfulness and free use of the veto power. 

Perhaps his administration was expected to achieve most in the 
way of reforms in the government of New York city. If judged 
by their extent and importance, it has been signally successful, 
and too much credit cannot be given the executive through 
whose agency they were effected. In urging and fostering them 
he had to combat an element in his own party, which had all 
along been defiant of interference. But the seven reform bills 
relating to the city went through and received his approval all 
the same. The autocratic power of the old Board of Aldermen 
was smashed, the princely incomes of county officers were cut 
down to respectable salaries, the political atmosphere was puri- 
fied, a freer and better ballot was promised. No more difficult 
task ever lay before an executive. He was compelled to brave 
an opposition at once politital and personal, clamorous and 
slanderous, malignant and threatening. He never swerved for 
a moment, but went right on. Let it be written that what fifty 
years of effort on the part of a score of governors failed to 
achieve for New York city was accomplished by Governor 
Cleveland in a single year of energetic, fearless and consistent 
administration. 



30 BUILDING AND RULING THE RFTUBLIC. 

The general features of his administration have been no less 
acceptable to the people and creditable to the man and the 
official. The parts which have been most criticised are those 
which, on thoughtful examination, or left alone to be judged by 
their results, redound most to his honor. A few of the acts 
must be mentioned here because their merits are under discus- 
sion, and attempts are being made to turn them to political ac- 
count. They should be understood lest, peradventure, some 
thoughtless person might jump at wrong conclusions respecting 
them. 

The first one of moment was the Five-Cent Fare bill. It was 
deemed important as a blow of the laboring people of New York 
at the Elevated Railroad, or, as the cry was, at monopoly. This 
bill the Governor, with characteristic moral courage, and after 
an exhaustive examination of its provisions, vetoed. His action 
provoked the unreasonable hostility of those who thought them- 
selves aggrieved. As to the merits of the bill the veto shows 
that it was clearly in violation of existing contracts, and uncon- 
stitutional. Approval would therefore have been a wrong. 
The bill would have righted nothing, but would have resulted 
in endless lawsuits and the expenditure of thousands of dollars 
of public money. Moreover it would have jeopardized the right 
the workingman already had, to ride, at the only hours possible 
for him to use the railways, at a five-cent fare. The veto was 
one wholly in his interest, as th6 sequel will prove. Referring 
to his message, the Tribune editorially said : 

"The message containing his reasons for so doing is straight- 
forward and forcible, and we believe will be pronounced sound 
by most of those who have been strenuous in their demands for 
a reduction of fares on the elevated roads. His objections to 
the measure are of a serious nature. He argues that to suffer it 
to become a law would mean the impairment of the obligation 
of a contract, involving a breach of faith and a betrayal of con- 
fidence by the State." 

The second Vas a Mechanics' Lien bill, which was claimed to 
give workingmen greater security for their wages.' It was a 
thoughtless and carelessly drawn act. The veto in this instance 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 31 

showed that the bill was wholly in the interest of lawyers and 
hangers-on of courts ; that it largely increased the fees and costs 
of entering and enforcing mechanics' liens; and that either 
through accident or design it repealed several existing mechanics' 
lien laws, including one specially applicable to the city of New 
York. The security of workingmen's wages was evidently the 
last thing thought of by the framers of the bill, and workingmen 
themselves are clearly indebted to the Governor, in this instance, 
for the measure of protection they enjoy. The Governor's 
memorandum, in which fatal objections are noticed, reads as 
follows : 

" The bill repeals in distinct terms a number of mechanics' 
lien laws, including one specially applicable to the city of New 
York. I notice two features which I think objectionable enough 
to warrant me in declining to sign it. First, it gives all partiej 
having claims four months after performance of work or furnish- 
ing of material to file a lien. Second, it allows on proceedings 
to enforce the lien the same costs as in foreclosure cases. This 
would be quite onerous, and, I think, should not be allowed." 

A third was the Twelve Hour bill, limiting a day's work for 
employes on passenger railways to tvi-'elve hours. This bill 
was vetoed because it was a buncombe enactment, too loosely 
drawn to be effective, and violative of the sanctity of contracts 
made as well as the freedom of those to be made. Strict justice 
required the step he took. His reasons were cogently and 
clearly stated, and every lawyer recognized their force at the 
time. The Governor's memorandum, on which the veto mes- 
sage was based, reads as follows : 

" It is distinctly and palpably class legislation, in that it only 
applies to conductors and drivers on horse railroads. It does 
not prohibit the making of a contract for any number of hours' 
work, I think, and if it does, it is an interference with the em- 
ployes' as well as employers' rights. If the car-drivers and 
conductors work fewer hours they must receive less pay, and 
this bill does not prevent that. I cannot think that this bill is 
in the interest of the workingman." 

The Public Worship bill was one granting permission to the 



32 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

Catholic clergy to hold services at the House of Refuge, on 
Randall's Island. This bill he never vetoed. It only passed 
one branch of the Assembly, and therefore never reached the 
Governor. Of the Catholic Protectory bill, his failure to approve 
which is now being used against him, there can be but one 
opinion. It appropriated ;^30,ooo to improve the sewerage of 
the Catholic Protectory, built by the church in Westchester 
county for the reception and reform of young men and women 
sent there by magistrates of the surrounding counties. The 
laws of the State prevent the use of public moneys for sectarian 
uses. The fate of the bill would have been the same had the 
institution been Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, 
or that of any other denomination. He was merely keeping his 
oath to observe and execute the laws. 

The unseemly attempt to force a religious issue into a political 
campaign, based on the Governor's action respecting the above 
bill, has already been deprecated by leading spokesmen for the 
church. 

Of this very bill, Mr. Henry L. Hoguet, president of the Pro- 
tectory, says: 

**We never doubted the sincerity of the motive which induced 
Governor Cleveland to withhold his signature to the appropria- 
tion to the Protectory. We thought then, and think now, that 
he was not actuated by any feeling of bigotry or of hostility to 
Catholics or the Catholic institutions. On the contrary, Gover- 
nor Cleveland is liberal in the extreme, and we are of the firm 
belief that he was led to withholding his approval of the appro- 
priation solely by a sense of public duty as he viewed it." 

Ex-Senator Kernan has well said, " Is it to be supposed for a 
moment that the Catholic Church of this country is in the hands 
of a pack of politicians ? Is its power and influence to be bar- 
tered away by any man or set of men ? That sort of campaign 
bosh I consider malicious, and a direct insult to every Catholic 
in the country. During Mr. Cleveland's administration as Gov- 
ernor of New York he has acted judiciously in distributing his 
appointments. He has favored no class or creed. He has given 
a fair share of his patronage to Catholics." 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 



33 



And so the Buffalo Catholic Union : 

" Catholics, as such, have asked nothing of Governor Cleve- 
land, and they would be very foolish to do it. Catholics have 
no right to expect from Governor or from President anything as 
Catholics, or on the score of religion. But we have a right to 
be treated as citizens on a perfect equality with all other religious 
denominations, and that no discrimination shall be made against 
us because we are Catholics. Justice, fair play and equal rights 
are all we claim ; and we were not worthy of the high privilege 
of American citizenship were we content with less. 

" Catholic citizens should hold to strict account at the ballot 
box those who would refuse or deny them perfect equality and 
equal rights with all other denominations. In general we are 
proud to say that our fellow-citizens do recognize, practically 
acknowledge our equal rights before the law; and when ' Gov- 
ernor Cleveland treated Catholics and Catholic interests pre- 
cisely as he did the members of other religious bodies and their 
interests,' he only acted as an honest American executive." 

It has been loosely charged that he vetoed an important bill 
which prevented contract labor by children under a certain age, 
As to this we quote his own fanguage : 

" I am sometimes afraid that at least a few of those who 
pose as friends of the workingmen do not keep themselves 
fully informed as to what is done for them by way of legis- 
lation. As an illustration I see it stated in the papers as com- 
ing from one who professes to be especially the friend of the 
workingmen, and claiming to be a leader among them, that I 
vetoed a bill preventing contract labor by^ children in the re- 
formatories and institutions of the State. In point of fact, this 
bill was promptly signed by me, and no other measure touching ' 
this question has been presented to me." 

Much account has been made of his veto of the Tenure of 
Office bill. But his veto message in this as in all other instances 
comes to his rescue. The bill was glaringly defective, and the 
Governor gave his reasons for his course in a message which left 
no doubt of it at the time. The friends of the bill agreed with 
him in believing that the measure as it reached him was defec- 
3 



34 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

tive and ought not to become a law. Mr. Francis M. Scott, who 
drafted the bill and worked most earnestly for its passage, pub- 
lished a letter in which he said that the Governor was perfectly 
right in vetoing the measure, because as it reached him " it was 
a very shabby piece of legislation, quite unfit to find a place on 
the statute book." 

Altogether his use of the veto power has been discreet and 
has met with almost unanimous popular approval. His mes- 
sages have been well-studied, clear-cut papers, evidences of ex- 
haustive analysis of measures and deep research respecting them, 
and assurances of the most impartial motive and deepest recti- 
tude of intention. Judged by his vetoes alone, which have been 
necessarily frequent, his administration has not only drawn the 
widest approval but stands unparalleled for its vigor and consist- 
ency. A feeble man, one without the true executive instinct, 
would have quailed before corrupting pressure or unreasoning 
clamor, and often given sanction to measures which his inner 
conscience disapproved. But Grover Cleveland moved on a 
highly conscientious plane, regardless of partisan appeal, brutal 
threat or slanderous arrow, never counting the bearing his con- 
duct might have on his personal or political fortune, apparently 
bound only to the discharge of a duty he owed to the whole 
people. There is observable at every turn of his executive 
career stern adhesion to the cardinal principles that preserved 
and honored his youth and gave him a firm foothold among his 
fellow-citizens as an humble attorney. His scrutiny of every bill 
was close, and attended with a sharp legal insight. As he had 
been his own counsellor while mayor, so he was really his own 
Attorney-General while Governor. His vetoes stood every test 
^applied to them, and not one rejected bill was passed over his 
protest. Many bills were returned because improperly and 
loosely drawn. These, when amended so as to be no longer in- 
consequential or mere deadwood accumulations on the statute 
books, he afterwards approved. Whether in signing bills or re- 
jecting them he has shown a diligence, patience, and competent 
inquiry which have elicited the warmest esteem of the fair-minded 
people of the State. They all look upon him as a strong, deter- 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 35 

mined, unselfish man in whom, as executive, there i^ full security. 
It was this very sense of security that put him in the minds of 
the people as candidate for President, arid will make him a 
formidable nominee. 

It must not be imagined that his tenacity of principle and dis- 
regard of consequences make him indifferent or conservative. 
On the contrary he is keenly alive to what is going- on, watchful 
of the movements of public sentiment, and at the front as a pro- 
gressist, whether the column be political, social or moral. The 
Civil Service Act for the State of New York, a miniature of the 
system recently adopted by the General Government, received 
liis unqualified sanction. Of the same spirit were the Reform 
bills for New York city, and numberless others to mention which 
would be tiresome. 

EXECUTIVE HABITS.— T\\Q business of his office is con- 
ducted with the regularity of clock-work. Method prevails 
everywhere. He comes and goes at stated hours, if we except 
the long hours of evening when there is pressure of work ; then 
lie stays till far into the night in order to keep his executive 
business well in hand. His industry does not permit him to load 
others with responsibility. The burden which is his own he 
bears with alacrity. The judgment which is his own, and which 
always carries such convincing weight, is based on his personal 
examination of public acts, his actual inquiry into public affairs, 
his direct knowledge of public events. As to equipment for 
carrying on the business of State, perfectly modulated depart- 
ment machinery, systematic direction of energy and consumption 
of time, intelligent control of whatever concerns the common 
weal, his office is a model and its directorship a profitable study. 

PERSONNEL. — Governor Cleveland is a bachelor, and not a 
rich one as some maliciously aver, and too many suppose. At 
his home in Buffalo, he boarded at the Tifft House, and lived in 
easy style amid a group of bachelor friends who enjoyed com- 
fortable incomes. An examination of the assessor's books shows 
that he pays taxes on ;^5,ooo of personal property, and owns no 
real estate. 

His figure is tall, broad and commanding, with a tendency to 



36 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

corpulency, which, as yet, does not interfere with great activity 
and incessant industry. His face is regular, clear-cut, and hand- 
some. Notwithstanding the fact that he is a bachelor, it is what 
might be called a parental face, being reserved yet genial, firm 
yet kind, dignified yet not distant. His business manner is 
brusque and simple, precisely that required for despatch. His 
social mood is pleasant and assuring. He is, when not pressed 
with business care, open to all comers, and all, from the rag- 
picker to prince, find his hand extended, his hearing patient, his 
demeanor cordial. Though of nervous temperament he is easy 
in society, and reserved in emergency. His complexion is light, 
his hair brown and thin, his full, square and shapely head in- 
clined to baldness. He delights in association with his own sex, 
but does not incline to ladies' society. The executive residence 
is a half mile distant from the capitol. This distance he always 
walks, both ways. His bosom is full of the milk of human 
kindness and his heart big enough to take in all mankind. An 
anecdote is apropos. 

The crier in one of the courts of Albany is a blind man, who 
lives in the same part of the city as the Governor. He is some- 
what aged and has become so familiar with the road from his 
home over to the court-house that he generally goes alone. But 
one morning, some months ago, he missed his way, and the 
Governor coming along took him by the arm and brought him 
along with him as far as the capitol building. As they were 
about to separate, the old gentleman asked the name of his con- 
siderate guide. 

" My name is Cleveland," said the Governor. 

"Are you in business in the city?" 

*' Yes. I have an office up here in the capitol." 

" Oh, you are not the Governor ? " 

" Yes. I am the Governor." 

The poor old fellow was almost beside himself, and went on 
his way with a story to tell as long as he lived. 

A well-known correspondent, writing of an interview with the 
Governor since his nomination, says : 

" When the Governor gets well settled in his chair, takes a good 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 37 

long breath, and adjusts his glasses on the lower part of his nose, 
he looks as wise, as mellow, and as sunshiny as Benjamin Frank- 
lin. He looks as though it would take a very considerable shock 
to knock him off his balance. I asked him the other day if he 
read the papers that abused him. 

" * Sometimes,' said he, with a smile that broke out all over 
his face. 

" * Do you ever get disturbed over anything they say ? * 
" * Not much. Every man has a right to enjoy his own mind. 
I remember an old fellow who was a neighbor of my father and 
we would sometimes try to get hini to come over to our church. 
He was a strong Baptist, and he would always say: ** No; you 
folks are Presbyterians, and if I go over to your church I couldn't 
enjoy my mind." Of course, that was the end of the argument' 
** * What was the most annoying slander they have ever 
published about you. Governor ? ' 

" ' Well, I have been more surprised (and then he did twist 
just a little in his chair) at the way I have been misrepresented 
as to the laboring men than anything else. I don't see how the 
idea ever got out in the first place that I have been opposed to 
the interests of laboring men. I cannot remember one single 
act in my life that could be reasonably construed into anything 
inimical to their best interests. It has been just the other way 
with me. I have always taken particular pains, whenever it was 
in my power, to see their interests well guarded. But I have no 
fear as to the outcome. I have observed that laboring men have 
minds of their own as well as political principles, and when there 
has been a full investigation of my official life the facts will be 
made known, and I am not uneasy as to the result. They talk 
about the workingmen as if they were a lot of sheep to be cor- 
ralled or scattered by this man or that. Most workingmen are 
natural Democrats. Democracy means the rule of the people, 
and the Democratic party has always been the natural friend of 
the workingmen. I do not think any great number of those who 
are in my party will fail to vote for me, first, because tliey are 
naturally disposed to go with their party, and second, because 
they will learn long before election day that my attitude toward 
them has been misrepresented.' 



38 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

"The Governor had grown serious enough to lay his glasses 
on the desk and wipe his face with an immense white handker- 
chief." 

THE TAMMANY QUESTION.^Th^ Tammany attitude 
has been and is so much commented upon, that it is well to 
know Governor Cleveland's status respecting it. It will be seen, 
it is not one of hostility, except in so far as Tammany chooses 
to make it such ; and it is to be doubted if the intention to do 
so can be carried out, even if it exists. That organization under- 
took to wrestle with the Governor through its senatorial spokes- 
man, who made the mistake of forcing the measures of a society 
rather than honestly representing the people of a district. Feel- 
ing that he was agent for a clique, and responsible to its head, 
by whom he was selected, the Governor sent a missive directly 
to headquarters, which, in a fearless, straightforward way, made 
known his sentiments. It ran thus : 

Executive Chamber, Albany, October 20, 1883. — Hon. John Kelly — My dear 
Sir : It is not without hesitation that I write this. I have determined to do so, how- 
ever, because I see no reason why I should not be entirely frank with you. I am 
anxious that Mr, Grady should not be returned to the next Senate. I do not wish 
to conceal the fact that my personal comfort and satisfaction are involved in this 
matter. But I know that good legislation, based upon a pure desire to promote the 
interests of the people, and the improvement of legislative methods are also deeply 
involved. I forbear to write in detail of the other considerations having relation to 
the welfare of the party and the approval to be secured by a change for the better 
in the ch iracter of its representatives. These things will occur to you without sug- 
gestion from me. Yours very truly, Grover Cleveland. 

No comment on this is needed, except that somebody mistook 
Governor Cleveland's unalterable purpose to have " good legis- 
lation" and "improvement of legislative methods" in New York 
city as well as elsewhere. 

IN CONVENTION— "Long before the meeting of the Chi- 
cago Convention indications pointed to Governor Cleveland as 
the proper Democratic nominee for President. The political 
situation was such as to make New York a pivotal State in the 
Presidential contest. His fame as an executive had gone abroad 
ia the land. He had the prestige of unprecedented majority in 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 39 

his favor when he carried off the honors of Governor. He, 
more than any other man spoken of, was the embodiment of all 
the great qualities which combined in the formation of an ideal 
leader. He typed the instincts and sentiments of a younger 
Democracy who loved his independence of character, his ster- 
ling methods, his subhme mastery of circumstances. He stood 
for what the older Democracy most cherished, adherence to 
patriotic tradition, plain, common sense devotion to principle, 
economic and business-like execution of high official trust 
There was only one ripple in the current running toward his 
nomination. That was occasioned by the Tammany pebble at 
the bottom of the stream. There the stream murmured, but ran 
rapidly on, its murmur a laugh. 

The Convention was thoroughly representative of the Demo- 
cratic party. As the presiding officer, Col. William F. Vilas, 
said, " The Convention was the greatest and most magnificent 
council of freemen ever assembled on the face of God's round 
globe. For three days it listened to a * profound debate from the 
greatest speakers in the country ' upon the various candidates, 
and the point of order was justly raised that it was contrary to 
the rules governing the Convention to thus discuss the candi- 
dates, but it was unanimously voted by the Convention that the 
freest discussion should be permitted, in order to develop all the 
facts obtainable. The debate of three days left no doubt in the 
minds of the delegates as to whom the choice of the Convention 
should be." 

It was particularly noteworthy that amid all the caucusing for 
rival candidates, amid the arguments educed for favorites from 
respective States and sections, amid the formal presentation of 
name^ to the Convention, no Democratic orator of high and 
unquestioned standing in his party ever spoke a derogatory word 
of Governor Cleveland or expressed a doubt of the propriety and 
fitness of his nomination. It is equally noteworthy that the 
magic of his name was such as to hold his State delegation as a 
unit and turn every malignant attempt to break it into an argu- 
ment and inspiration in his behalf 

At 3.55 P. M. of July 9th, Mr. Lockwood, of New York, took 



40 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



the platform to place in nomination the name of Grover Cleve- 
land. He did this in an eloquent speech, in which he said : 

The responsibility which he felt was made greater when he remembered that 
the richest pages of American history had been made up from the records of Demo- 
cratic administrations, and remembered that the outrage of 1876 was still unavenged. 
No man had a greater respect than he for the honored names presented to the Con- 
vention, but the world was moving, and new men, who had participated but little 
in politics, were coming to the front. Three years ago he had the honor in the 
city of Buffalo to present the name of the same gentleman for the office of mayor. 
"Without hesitation the name of Grover Cleveland had been accepted as the candi- 
date. [Applause in the galleries and delegations.] 

The result of that election and of the holding of that office was that in less than 
nine months the State of New York found itself in a position to want such a can- 
didate, and when in the Convention of 1882 his name was presented for the office 
of Governor of the State of New York the same class of people knew that that 
meant honest government; that it meant pure government; that it meant Demo- 
cratic government, and it was ratified. Now the State of New York came and 
asked that there be given to the Independent and Democratic voters of the country 
— the young men of the country, the new blood of the country — the name of 
Grover Cleveland. 

The nomination was eloquently seconded by Harrison of Illi- 
nois and Jones of Minnesota. 

The first ballot was had on the night of the loth. The friends 
of Governor Cleveland had computed his strength at 397 votes. 
Their count proved to be exceedingly close. To show how his 
strength was diversified as well as its chief sources a view must 
be taken of the ballot itself: 



THE FIRST BALLOT. 



States and 


Cleve- 




Thur- 




McDon- 






Car- 


Territories. 


land. 


Randall. 


man. 


Bayard. 


aid. 


Hoadly. 


lisle 


Alabama 


4 






14 










Arkansas 


. 14 
















California 






16 












Colorado ! . . 


. . 
















Connecticut 


12 




. . 












Delaware 


. 






6 










Plorida 


. 8 




. . 


. . 


. . 








Georgia 


. 10 


2 




12 










IlKnois 


. 28 


I 




2 


II 








Indiana 


. . 


. . 


. . 




30 








low^ 


. 23 


. , 




I 










Kansas. 


II 


, . 


2 


5 










Kentucky 






.. 




•. 






26 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 



41 



States and 
Territories. 



Cleve 
land 



THE FIRST BALLOT- 

Thur- 
man. 



Randall. 



■Continued. 
Bayard. 



McDon- 
ald. 



Louisiana 13 

Maine 12 

Maryland 6 

Massachusetts 3 

Michigan 14 

Minnesota 14 

Mississippi I 

Missouri 15 

Nebraska 8 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 8 

New Jersey 4 

New York 72 

North Carolina 

*Ohio I 

Oregon 2 

Pennsylvania 5 

Rhode Island 6 

South Carolina 8 

Tennessee 2 

Texas ii 

Vermont 8 

Virginia 13 

*West Virginia 4 

"Wisconsin 12 



Hoadly. 

I 



Car- 
lisle. 



10 

23 



II 



55 



24 



22 



2 
10 



Total 



392 78 88 170 56 3 27 

* Before the announcement of the result Ohio's vote was changed to following : 
Thurman, 23 ; Hoadly, 2 ; Cleveland, 21. West Virginia : Randall, I ; Bayard, 
2 ; Cleveland, 7 ; Thurman, 2. 

Scattering. — Tilden received i vote in Tennessee, Hendricks i in Illinois, 
Flower 4 in Wisconsin. 

At 1 1.20 A. M. of the I ith, the second ballot began, and ended 
at I p. M. Every face and movement in the vast assemblage be- 
trayed the nervous anxiety with which the result was looked 
forward to. The withdrawal of Mr. Randall's name was at- 
tended with great excitement, as it seemed to be clearing the 
Pennsylvania delegation for determined action in some new 
direction. The withdrawal of McDonald's name was to make 
way for that of Mr. Hendricks, upon whom all the opposition to 
Mr. Cleveland thought they could consolidate. The balloting 
proceeded amid intense suspense, and with satisfactory gains for 
Cleveland until Pennsylvania was called. Forty-two of her 
votes went to Cleveland. This broke the spell that held the 
Convention. Amid exciting cheers and enthusiastic bustle the 
States began to rearrange their votes as if on final ballot. The 



42 



BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 



result was Cleveland's nomination by 683 votes, or 136 more 
than the necessary two-thirds. 



THE SECOND BALLOT. 



States and 
Territories. 



Cleve- 
land. 



Alabama 5 

Arkansas 14 

California 16 

Colorado 6 

Connecticut 12 

Delaware 

Florida 8 

Georgia 22 

Illinois 43 

Indiana ^o 

Iowa 26 

Kansas 17 

Kentucky 4 

Louisiana 15 

Maine 12 

Maryland 16 

Massachusetts 8 

Michigan 23 

Minnesota 14 

Mississippi 2 

Missouri 32 

Nebraska 9 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 8 

New Jersey 5 

New York 72 

North Carolina 22 

Ohio 46 

Oregon 6 

Pennsylvania . . 42 

Rhode Island 7 

South Carolina 10 

Tennessee 24 

Texas 26 

Vermont 8 

Virginia ^ 23 

West Virginia 10 

Wisconsin 22 

Arizona 2 

Dakota 2 

Idaho 2 

Montana 2 

New Mexico 2 

Utah 2 

Washington Territory. ... 2 

Wyoming 2 

Dist. of Columbia 2 



Bayard. 
14 



McDon- 

ild. 



Thur- 
man. 



Randall. 



dric 



21 



7/2 



3 



Total 683 8i>^ 

Necessary for choice, 547. 



45/2 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 43 

The general result was announced as follows : Whole num- 
ber of votes cast, 820; necessary to a choice, ^547. Cleveland 
received'683 ; Hendricks, 45^ ; Bayard, 81 j^ ; McDonald, 2; 
Randall, 4 ; Thurman, 4. The question was then put on Mr. 
Menzies' motion to make the nomination unanimous, and it was 
carried triumphantly. 

It may be profitable at this point to glance at the Democratic 
conventions of the past. The nominations made therein for the 
last fifty years are as follows : 

1836, Martin Van Buren, ist ballot. 

1840, Martin Van Buren, unanimously. 

1844, James K. Polk, 9th ballot. 

1848, Lewis Cass, 4th ballot. 

1852, Franklin Pierce, 49th ballot. 

1856, James Buchanan, 17th ballot. 

i860, John C. Breckinridge, 56th ballot. 

1864, George B. McClellan, ist ballot. 

1868, Horatio Seymour, 23d ballot. 

1872, Horace Greeley, endorsed. 

1876, Samuel J. Tilden, 2d ballot. 

1880, Winfield S. Hancock, 2d ballot. 

1884, Grover Cleveland, 2d ballot. 

The i860 convention that nominated Breckinridge balloted 
fifty-five times at Charleston, S. C, then adjourned to Baltimore, 
June 18, when Breckinridge was unanimously nominated on the 
first ballot. The ** bolters " met the same day and nominated 
Stephen A. Douglas on the first ballot. In 1852 Franklin 
Pierce's name first appeared on the thirty-fifth ballot, when Vir- 
ginia gave him her fifteen votes. Lewis Cass and James Bu- 
chanan were the leading candidates on forty-five ballots, but at 
no time did either have a majority of the convention, while a 
two-thirds vote was required to nominate. 

RECEPTION OF THE NEWS.—Tli^ news of Governor 
Cleveland's nomination was received with demonstrations of 
delight by the Democratic party and by the independent element 
of the Republican party. Party newspapers in general spoke of 
it as a hopeful and proper political step. Large ratification 



44 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

meetings were improvised in city and village, at which great 
enthusiasm prevailed, and from which proceeded hearty endorse- 
ment of the Convention's action. What is known as the inde- 
pendent, or bolting Republican press, was, if anything, more 
encomiastic than the regular Democratic press. The sentiments 
of a few of these will type the whole : 

Governor Cleveland will be supported by a united and aggressive Democratic 
party. He will have the votes of tens of thousands of Independent Republicans. 
He will have the support of the larger part of successful newspapers of the 
country, both secular and religious. He will have the confidence and votes of the 
business men of the land. It will be shown that this poor boy who has worked 
his way up to the proud position which he now holds knows what it is to work day 
in and day out, and that he is a true friend of the toiling masses. — Boston Globe 
(Butler's organ). 

The nomination of Governor Cleveland defines sharply the actual issue of the 
Presidential election of this year. He is a man whose absolute official integrity 
has never been questioned, who has no laborious and doubtful explanations to 
undertake, and who is universally known as the Governor of New York elected 
by an unprecedented majority which was not partisan, and represented both the 
votes and the consent of an enormous body of Republicans, and who as the Chief 
Executive of the State has steadily withstood the blandishments and the threats of 
the worst elements of his party, and has justly earned the reputation of a cour- 
ageous, independent, and efficient friend and promoter of administrative reform. 
His name has become that of the especial representative among our public men of 
the integrity, purity, and economy of administration which are the objects of the 
most intelligent and patriotic citizens. — Harper's Weekly. 

It is not only in what he clearly represents but in what he distinctly opposes that 
Grover Cleveland is strong before the American people. * His career has made 
him^the exponent of clean and honest politics. In the administration of public 
trusts he has shown that he is superior to partisan bias, indifferent to such party 
nterests as are in contact with official probity and the public welfare. He has 
been severely tried in the important and responsible post he now occupies. He has 
resisted the importunities of designing politicians, he has defeated the purposes of 
selfish schemers. All those members of his own party who are not absorbed in 
private aims which are in conflict with the public good are outspoken in his praise; 
and he has won the good opinion of all Republicans who are not so far gone in 
partisanship as to have lost the power to commend upright conduct in a political 
adversary. — N. Y. Times. 

Of the kind of experience which the present situation in national affairs most 
imperatively calls for, experience in administration, Cleveland has more than any 
one who has entered the White House since i860, more than any man whom either 
party has nominated within that period, except Seymour and Tilden— more than 
Lincoln more than Grant, more than Hayes, more than Garfield, more than 
Arthur. 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 45 

He laid at the start that best of all foundations for American statesmanship by 
becoming a good lawyer. He began his executive career by being a good county 
sheriff. He was next intrusted with the administration of a great city — as severe a 
test of a man's capacity in deahng with men and affairs as any American in our 
lime can undergo. In both offices he gave boundless satisfaction to his fellow-citi- 
zens of both parties. His nomination for the Governorship of this Slate came in 
due course, and at a crisis in State affairs which very closely resembled that which 
we are now witnessing in national affairs. His election by an unprecedented 
majority is now an old story. It was the beginning of a revolution. It was the 
first thorough fright the tricky and jobbing element in politics ever received here. 
It for the first time in their experience gave reform an air of reality. But it might, 
had Cleveland proved a weak or incompetent man, have turned out a very bad 
blow for pure politics. 

Luckily, he justified all the expectations and even all the hopes of those who 
voted for him. No friend of good government, who, in disregard of party ties, 
cast his vote for him, has had reason to regret it for one moment. We owe to his 
vigorous support a large number of reformatory measures, which people in this 
State for forty ye'ars had sighed for with little more expectation of seeing them 
enacted than of seeing the Millennium. In other words, he has arrested the growth 
of political despair among large numbers both of young and old voters in this State. 
His messages, too, have been models of sound common sense and penetrating 
sagacity, clothed in the terse and vigorous English which shows that there is a 
man and not a windy phrasemonger behind the pen. Though last not least, his 
best work has been done in utter disregard of the hostility of that element in his 
own party which for so many years has made it an object of mingled hate and fear 
to the best part of the American people. He is, in truth, a Democrat of the better 
age of the Democratic party, when it was a party of simplicity and economy, and 
might almost have put its platform into the golden rule of giving every man his due, 
minding your own business, and asking nothing of government but light taxes, and 
security in the field and by the fireside. No one who has entered the White House 
for half a century, except Lincoln in his second term, has offered reformers such 
solid guarantees that as President he will do his own thinking, and be his own 
master in the things which pertain to the Presidency. — N. Y. Evening Post. 

Governor Cleveland" has shown through the whole of his life, private and public, 
from boyhood to his present distinction, that he has the sterling qualities befitting 
the exalted office of Chief Executive of the United States. It is the highest func- 
tion of that office to administer the laws with an eye single to the public welfare. 
Our Government has been tersely described as " of the people, by the people, and 
for the people." No eminent public man has exhibited a better understanding of 
that definition of the American government than Grover Cleveland ; none has ex- 
emplified it better than he has in his performance of public duty, and but few, very 
few indeed, have exemplified it so well. His guiding characteristics have been loy- 
alty to duty; courage in the discharge of it, and the best and most faithful perform- 
ance of it within his power. These are strong words ; strong because they are true. 
—Philadelphia Ledger. 

The Governor himself received the news of the nomination 



4G BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

with entire equanimity. He had not shown himself ambitious 
of the honors, had done nothing directly to secure them. They 
came as a free-will offering, and by virtue of a record made in 
the path of duty. He would not have been disappointed had 
the Convention in its wisdom seen fit to similarly honor some 
one else. Yet he did not shirk the responsibilities which he 
knew were inseparable from candidacy, nor fail to announce 
himself as gratified with his political preference. During a 
serenade at the Executive mansion on the evening after his 
nomination he delivered the following tasteful and timely speech : 

Fellow-citizens— I cannot but be gratified with this kindly greeting. I find that 
I am fast reaching the point where I shall count the people of Albany not merely 
as fellow-citizens, but as townsmen and neighbors. On this occasion I am of course 
aware that you pay no compliment to a citizen and present no personal tribute, but 
that you have come to demonstrate your loyalty and devotion to a cause in which 
you are heartily enlisted. The American people are about to exercise in its highest 
sense their power and right of sovereignty. They are to call in review before them 
their public servants and the representatives of political parties, and demand of them 
an account of their stewardship. Parties may be so long in power and mray become 
so arrogant and careless of the interests of the people as to grow heedless of their 
responsibility to their masters. But the time comes as certainly as death when the 
people weigh them in the balance. The issues to be adjudicated Iby the nation's 
great assize are made up and are about to be submitted. We believe that the people 
.ire not receiving at the hands of the party which for nearly twenty-four years has 
directed the affairs of the nation the full benefits to which they are entitled — pure, 
just and economical rule, and we believe that the ascendency of genuine Democratic 
principles will insure a better Government and greater happiness and prosperity to 
all the people. To reach the sober thought of the nation and to dislodge an enemy 
entrenched behind spoils and patronage involves a struggle which, if we underesti- 
mate, we invite defeat. I am profoundly impressed with the responsibility of the 
part assigned to me in this contest. My heart, I know, is in the cause, and I pledge 
you that no effort of mine shall be wanting to secure the victory which I believe to 
be within the achievement of the Democratic hosts. Let us, then, enter upon the 
campaign now fairly opened, each one appreciating well the part he has to perform, 
ready with solid front to do battle for better government, confidently, courageously, 
always honorably, and with a firm reliance upon the intelligence and patriotism of 
the American people. 

The issue now joined before, among, and by the people, is 
happily one of peace and good-will. It invites fair and intelli- 
gent discussion of measures bearing on industry, matters of 
state and good morals. If this were all of a campaign, it would 



STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND. 47 

be well. But men, especially those at the forefront of the re- 
spective parties, cannot hope to escape analysis and controversy. 
Few will stand the test so well as Governor Cleveland. His 
character is a hard rock against which the waves of campaign 
criticism will dash in vain. Again, his public life and political 
record will tower above all envious misrepresentation and slan- 
derous detraction, if these unseemly and brutal methods should 
be resorted to, as the white wall of a harbor light towers above 
the surf that angrily lashes its base and sinks into sullen retreat. 




LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 

'HOMAS ANDREW HENDRICKS, ex-Governor of 
Indiana, unanimously nominated for the Vice-Presidency 
on the Democratic ticket in the Convention at Chicago, 
was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, September 7th, 
18 19. His father was Major John Hendricks, who was 
the member of a family quite distinguished in Western annals. 
A brother of John, who had preceded him to Indiana and was 
prominent in the convention which framed the constitution of that 
State, was its secortd governor, and served two terms in the 
United States Senate. 

The father, John Hendricks, was a well-to-do gentleman, much 
noted for his graces and hospitality. He was conspicuous in the 
Presbyterian Church and circles of his locality. Soon after the 
birth of his son Thomas he moved to Indiana and settled in 
Madison, then regarded as one of the most promising towns of 
the State. His circumstances enabled him to give his son a 
complete education. He was placed at Hanover College, where 
he graduated in 1841, at the age of twenty-two. From there he 
was sent to Chambersburg, Pa., where he completed a course of 
law studies and was admitted to the bar in 1843. 

In that year he returned to Indiana and at once entered upon 
his professional career. Such was the completeness of his prepa- 
ration, native ability, personal popularity and family influence, 
that he speedily acquired a lucrative practice, and grew into 
great prominence. His legal learning was broad and profound. 
His eloquence gave him great power with courts and juries. 
His management of cases was always skilful. But the profes- 
(48) / 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 49 

sional man cannot be best judged by the qualities which distin- 
guished him at the bar of his own county. He was greatest in 
those cases which involved grave constitutional points. His 
mind was organized and disciplined for the grasp of problems 
which concerned the State and nation, or which, if of a personal 
kind, usually lay beyond the reach of the ordinary practitioner. 
He was an orderly and profound thinker, always in command of 
full learning and excellent speech, and ever earnest and convinc- 
ing. The characteristics of his early success at the bar were 
those of his political life. But the latter field gave them fuller 
play and their possessor grander opportunity. It was readily 
seen after his entry into public life that he was a natural states- 
man as well as a finished lawyer. 

The year after his admission to the bar (1844) he distinguished 
himself in the Polk campaign as an effective stump orator and 
efficient champion of Democratic principles. The mark thus 
made in political circles was lasting. He was booked for earl}' 
honors. 

In 1845 he married Miss Eliza C. Morgan. After three more 
years of successful practice, he was elected to the State Legisla- 
ture, and served one term. He declined a re-election, preferring 
at that particular juncture to further advance his professional 
fortunes. But he had proved so useful to his constituents, and 
had evinced such power in debate and knowledge of leading 
questions, that a gratified people were not content to let him 
remain long in the seclusion of his office. 

In 1850 a convention sat for the purpose of remodelling the 
constitution of the State. He was elected a member of this 
deliberative body. Here he proved a brilliant champion of the 
prominent features of the present State Constitution. In a body 
which was composed of the best minds in the State it was no 
easy matter for one so young to win laurels. But he proved 
himself the equal of the best in learned and elaborate discussion. 
His amplification of constitutional subjects, his fullness of in- 
formation, his readiness, his ease and grace of speech, gave 
him a vantage ground occupied by but few of the older mem- 
bers. This may be regarded as the real beginning of a public 
4 



50 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

career which has extended over thirty-five years, and has always 
been useful, honorable and successful. 

HIS RIPENED CHARACTER.~lt was now clearly mani- 
fest that he was fitted by native talent and thorough legal train- 
ing for a wider field of usefulness and higher honors. His pop- 
ularity in his party, his identity with the people of the State, most 
of whom were of the stock of his fathers, and his interest in their 
prosperity and institutions were complete. It may be said, then 
as now, that no man was more generally loved without regard 
to party, and certainly no one was less hated. Whether at the 
bar, in political debate, or in the social circle, there was always 
a charm about him which won him hosts of friends. His char- 
acter had rounded into exceptional completeness. His morals 
were pure and his uprightness of that cast which made him 
solicitous to avoid even the appearance of doubtful action. In 
money matters he was prudent. He approached competency by 
economic habits and slow and natural accretions, and this though 
his legal practice was often broken in upon by calls to political 
service, and his expenses increased to meet the social require- 
ments of official station. His temperament was even and ami- 
able, and as life was going well with him, it seemed like the 
breaking of a drift or dream to tear him away from a calling 
for which he had affinities and from associations fast becoming 
cemented. It must not be inferred from this that he lacked am- 
bition, or that the elements of greatness, born in him, were at 
all slumberous. He could always rise to the height of a great 
occasion. Indeed it required great occasion to bring to the sur- 
face his hidden resources, his native powers. Spurred by oppo- 
sition, inspired by the importance of a cause, whetted by emer- 
gency, he could cast aside his habitual courtesy and caution and 
give full rein to impulses and powers as ripe for attack as they 
were for defense. On such occasions he was a finished combat- 
ant and dangerous opponent. His resource was as wonderful 
as his aggressive vigor. All through his legal career, it has been 
common to institute a comparison between him and his great 
rival, Oliver P. Morton, by saying that Hendricks was apt to be 
worsted before a jury and his rival had no chance before a.judge. 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 51 

IN CONGRESS. — In 185 1 he was nominated on the 53d bal- 
lot and elected on the Democratic ticket, a member of the Thirty- 
second Congress for the Fifth Indiana District. This Congress 
opened Dec. i, 1851, and closed March 3, 1853. It saw the 
close of Fillmore's administration. The elections had turned on 
the Compromise measures of 1850, and the people had endorsed 
them as a happy quietus to the slavery agitation by returning a 
majority of prudent-minded and conservative Democrats. The 
Senate contained a Democratic majority of 8 and the House 50. 
The measure of greatest political moment before this Congress 
was the organization of the Platte country, which afterwards took 
shape as the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Its enlarged discussion was 
not regarded as timely, and during the first session debate was 
shut off before it took acrimonious turn. The Democratic ma- 
jority did not even antagonize the Fillmore administration. 

A SECOND TERM.— Mr. Hendricks was re-elected to the 
Thirty-third Congress to represent the Sixth Congressional 
District. This Congress sat from Dec. 5, 1853, to March 3, 
1855. It was the first Congress of Pierce's administration. The 
country had ratified the Compromise measures of 1850, which 
were largely involved in the campaign. Both the Democratic 
and Whig parties had been committed to them in their platforms. 
The Whigs recoiled from the situation and went to pieces. In 
the House the Democrats had a majority of 74, and in the Sen- 
ate of 14. They were rather too confident of the situation. Their 
pro-slavery members forced the fighting on the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, and at the same time forced a division in their own ranks 
which never closed. The first session of the Thirty-third Con- 
gress was characterized by long, bitter debates, and by the cele- 
brated amendment to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which brought 
Mr. Douglas and the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty into 
prominent view. It cemented the Southern Democrats and 
Whigs, but divided the Northern Democrats into two even fac- 
tions consisting, in the House, of 44 members each. During 
these debates Mr. Hendricks sided with the majority of his party, 
but he did not fail to deprecate the acrimonious turn given to 
discussion, nor to warn his friends and the country of the con- 



52 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sequences likely to result from the partisanship which seemed to 
be inseparable from this class of questions. His position was 
that of the patriotic counsellor and adviser. The Second Ses- 
sion of the Thirty-third Congress was a quiet one, from a 
political standpoint, and there was no opportunity for great 
debate or party display. 

This closed the career of Mr. Hendricks as a member of the 
lower House. It had been highly creditable to him as a de- 
bater and statesman. While not a leader his opinions had great 
weight, and his advice was often sought in matters involving 
delicate party action. His discussion of public measures was 
clear, high-toned and forcible. It may be doubted whether any 
of his compeers, used as they were to political debate, and 
schooled as they were by long practice in parliamentary 
methods, outweighed him in the practical presentation of 
measures or in lucid disquisition of public questions. He re- 
tired a trusted and conspicuous member of his party and the 
National House. 

He was again placed in nomination as a candidate for member 
of the Thirty-fourth Congress, in the fall of 1854. He had for 
his opponent Lucian Barbour, a Republican, who united the 
entire anti-Nebraska sentiment of his district. After an earnest 
campaign in which Mr. Hendricks was forced to combat serious 
divisions in his own party ranks, he was defeated by 538 votes, 
the total vote being Barbour, 9,824 ; Hendricks, 9,286. 

LAND COMMISSIONER.— DQi&3.t did not mean retiracy 
from public position. He was appointed Commissioner of the 
General Land Office in 1855 by President Pierce. His admin- 
istration of this responsible office had proved so acceptable that 
he was reappointed by President Buchanan in 1857. He re- 
tained his place till 1859, when he resigned in order that he 
might be free to conduct his campaign for Governor of Indiana, 
for which place he received the nomination of his party. Those 
who are acquainted with the difficulties in the way of a perfectly 
pure and satisfactory administration of the General Land Office 
will appreciate Mr. Hendricks all the more as an official, when 
it is said of him that from the beginning to the end of his term 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 53 

his management was characterized by honest business principles 
which met the approval of all parties and all classes of men. He 
was methodical, direct, impartial, exact. Things moved like 
clock-work under his care. He enjoyed the unbounded faith 
of employes and the business public in his integrity and honor. 
He retired having added the laurels of pure administration to 
those won in the national halls of legislation. 

FOR GOVERNOR. — In what afterwards became known as 
the celebrated campaign of i860, the nominees of the Demo- 
cratic party in Indiana were for Governor Thomas A. Hendricks, 
Lieutenant-Governor David Turpie. The nominees of the Re- 
publican party were Col. Lane for Governor, and Oliver P. Mor- 
ton for Lieutenant-Governor. Never in the history of the State 
had the two dominant parties pitted against each other, for their 
chief offices, men of greater brilliancy and force. It was to be a 
notable contest, and the best material must be found in the front. 
The Republican candidates were aggressive, enthusiastic and 
popular. The Democratic candidates were not less aggressive 
and popular, but their fight was to be carried on under the dis- 
paragement which division had inflicted. What they lacked in 
fervor, they, however, hoped to make up in logical appeal to the 
judgment of their people. Feeling that they were better forti- 
fied with solid arguments than their opponents, and that they 
were, moreover, better qualified to make convincing presentation 
of them, a challenge to joint debate, to be carried on at desig- 
nated points in the State, was given and accepted. These de- 
bates were carried on in a spirited but friendly manner, and with 
varied opinion as to their merits, till Evansville was reached. 
There Col. Lane withdrew temporarily to attend the Chicago 
Convention which nominated Lincoln. On his return they were 
resumed and continued till all the arrangements had been ful- 
filled. Not yet done with them, the challenge was re-extended, 
but the Republican candidate declined the overture, preferring, 
as he said, to finish his campaign in his own way. His declina- 
tion was regarded as wise, for while he was recognized as the 
most popular orator of the two, he was no match for Mr. Hen- 
dricks in deliberate disputation, and that marshaling of argu- 



54 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC 

ments, which is called debate. The result of the campaign was 
the election of Lane and Morton. The former was almost im- 
mediately elected U. S. Senator, and Morton took his place as 
Governor. 

U, S. SENATOR. — In 1862 there was a political revolution 
in many of the Northern States. The Democratic party had 
recovered from the shock to its organization occasioned by the 
Kansas agitation and the breaking out of actual hostilities, 
and, finding in its opposition to the return of fugitive slaves, to 
the repeal of Habeas Corpus, to the imposition of an ** iron-clad 
oath," and to other Republican measures it regarded as extreme 
or uncalled for, a common rallying-ground, had again become 
both coherent and formidable. The result of the elections that 
year in Indiana was a Democratic Legislature. This gave to 
Mr. Hendricks an opportunity for merited advancement. A 
United States Senator was to be chosen. His party friends 
naturally turned to him as the proper man for the place. He 
was accordingly chosen for the term beginning March 4, 1863, 
and ending March 3, 1869. 

He entered the upper House at the opening of the Thirty- 
eighth Congress, December 7, 1863, at a time when the par- 
ties there stood 36 Republicans to 14 Democrats, and when the 
majority were bent on only measures of war. There was, there- 
fore, but little opportunity for the display of positive statesman- 
ship. The utmost that could be done by so small a minority 
was to make itself respected, and to so manage as to afford the 
best check possible to arbitrary, useless or offensive legislation. 
In this mission Mr. Hendricks was from the start a potent factor. 
His legal learning, systematic methods, fairness in disputation, 
sterling integrity, and gentlemanly bearing, were known before 
his entry, and he not only found himself high up in the councils 
of his own party, but an honored representative on such impor- 
tant committees as those of Claims, the Judiciary, Public Build- 
ings and Grounds, Public Lands, for which his previous expe- 
rience especially fitted him, and Naval Affairs. 

His protests, which were those of his party, were ably recorded 
against a nultitude of measures deemed undemocratic and dan- 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 55 

gerous. They were not idly presented nor factiously maintained, 
but, made as they were in the face of a strong popular prejudice 
throughout the country and a powerful opposition in the Senate, 
had to be deliberately and earnestly urged in order to command 
the degree of respect they were justly entitled to. In their prepa- 
ration and advocacy Mr. Hendricks was a leader of his party. 
His mastery of constitutional law, his conception of political 
situations, his integrity of conviction, the sound conservatism of 
his nature at a time when radicalism was running wild and theo- 
retic legislation was overstepping the bounds of prudence, con- 
spired to give him a prominence enjoyed by few men of that 
exciting era. His reputation became national. Even those who 
did not agree with his opinions respected the man, for he was 
sincere in his views, frank in his statements, courageous in his 
arguments. 

Some have thought he lacked aggressiveness. Such do not 
understand the situation in which he was placed during his 
career as Senator. He dared not be offensively bold. That 
would have destroyed the moral effect of all minority protest and 
appeal. He was diplomatic, cautious, and even shrewd, in his 
debates and parliamentary methods. If for boldness and aggres- 
siveness, we substitute firmness and consistency of opposition we 
more truthfully paint the attitude and measure the manner of the 
man. 

The leading measures were those which directly or remotely 
concerned reconstruction. Nearly every one remembers the re- 
lation of parties on these novel and delicate measures. They 
were wide apart as to the power of Congress over the matter of 
reconstruction, as to the position the government should assume 
toward the belligerent States, as to the methods best calculated 
to assure peace and perfect restoration of the Union. The policy 
of the minority could not be as definitely shaped as that of the 
majority, and ofttimes it was misunderstood, for that is a fate 
inseparable from opposition, especially when minorities are hope- 
lessly small. But that policy, in the hands of men like Mr. 
Hendricks, was sturdily, consistently and respectfully urged. His 
debates are singularly free from acrimony, considering the pas- 



56 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

sions of the hour. If his arguments did not weigh in the Senate 
Chamber so as to defeat measures, they told before the country 
and served to strengthen him as well as to encourage his party 
friends. 

It would hardly add to the lustre of his fame to enter upon 
tedious recital of the Acts he opposed, or to spread his speeches 
at length upon these pages. But a few may be mentioned as an 
index to the whole. The Thirteenth Amendment passed the 
Senate, [April 8, 1863, by a vote of 38 to 6. Mr. Hendricks 
voted with the minority. He spoke and voted against the bill 
passed in 1864, conferring the right of suffrage on negroes in the 
District of Columbia. During the first session of the Forty- 
eighth Congress he opposed the Charter of the Washington 
City passenger railway company, or rather the amendment to it, 
permitting negroes to ride in the cars. On June 6, 1864, he 
voted against the bill to increase the Internal Revenue, the vote 
being, yeas 22, nays 3 — the latter were Davis, Hendricks and 
Powell. On June 17, 1864, he voted against the amended 
Tariff act. The vote stood, yeas 22, nays 5 — the latter being 
Buckalew, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell and Richardson. He 
actively opposed all the Republican measures overturning the 
old State governments, the imposition of test oaths, the bills 
known as Civil Rights Bills, the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and 
kindred enactments. 

Let it not be understood that his opposition was to the letter 
of all these bills. With that he often concurred, but he saw in 
their spirit a dangerous tendency and this he opposed. His po- 
litical conduct was shaped on the theory that the peace, prosper- 
ity and happiness of the white people of the South, even though 
they had been offenders, were matters of more pressing moment 
than the care and advancement of the uneducated and irrespon- 
sible freedmen. He deprecated race distinctions, but since Re- 
publican legislation drew a line, he thought that if either race 
had to go to the wall, it should be the black race rather than the 
white. Over and above all, he held that the natural supremacy 
of the white race was a guarantee of the very safety to the col- 
ored race which was then sought through legislation. Exalting 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 57 

the unprepared freedmen into a governing class and at the same 
time disfranchising their former masters, or disparaging them by- 
contrast, he held to be as much of an evil as the old system of slav- 
ery itself. The arguments educed in support of his views have 
been generally adopted in the Summaries of Congressional de- 
bates as the authoritative embodiment of Democratic opinion on 
the reconstruction and other measures, then conspicuous before 
Congress and the country. 

On the impeachment of President Johnson in 1867, Mr. Hen- 
dricks was of course a member of the Court, under the Consti- 
tutional clause, " The Senate shall have the sole power to try all 
impeachments." He was one of the nineteen Senators who voted 
not guilty, and saved the President from disgrace. It is said that 
his arguments in support of his position, in this instance, were 
so ably and convincingly put, that they drew praise from those 
of opposite opinion, and may have served to snatch from the 
majority the two-thirds necessary for conviction. At any rate, 
his reputation as a juris-consult was largely augmented by his 
membership of this unusual and august court. 

It is a sufficient proof of his ability and success as a Senator, 
that at the end of a single term he had won the confidence of his 
opponents, and had placed himself among the foremost men in his 
party, as a statesman and leader. Henceforth he was to stand 
out in bold relief as one upon whose brow higher honors might 
readily fall — even the honors of the Chief Magistracy. 

AS EULOGIST. — And it must not be forgotten that during 
these years he was receiving distinction in civic capacity. Few 
occasions, especially in his own State, requiring learned disquisi- 
tion or touching oratory, failed to command his presence. His 
address before the Indiana Law School on the " Character of 
Oliver P. Morton " is regarded as the best and truest analysis of 
the deceased ex-Governor extant. This is all the more credita- 
ble, considering the fact that they were life-long legal and politi- 
cal rivals, and so evenly balanced in learning and reputation, that 
the weight of a single feather might have changed the popular 
verdict respecting their merits. The eulogies of Mr. Hendricks 
upon ex-Governors Lane, Whitcomb and Williams, are models 



58 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

of elocution, analysis and pathos. At such times he could 
sink the man in the occasion, and let the intellect go forth in just 
and elegant tribute, and the heart testify to the worth it found 
and the sorrow it felt. Few public men are thus endowed. Only 
the unselfishly great can strip themselves of their personalism 
and rise to the dignity of an occasion requiring exact justice to 
opposing character and profound respect for rival reputation. 
The warmest friend of those whose names are mentioned above 
could not ask for better historic perpetuation of their fame than 
that found in the eulogiums of Mr. Hendricks. 

In pursuit of his policy of reconciliation and peace between 
the two sections of the country, Mr. Hendricks endorsed the 
call for a National Union Convention, to be held in Philadelphia, 
August 14, 1866. Its object was to protest against the further 
unconstitutional war measures on the part of the Republican 
party, and to inspire a better feeling and bring about closer rela- 
tions, political and otherwise, between the North and South. 
He also signed the address of the Democratic Congressmen to 
the people of the United States, whose sentiments furnished the 
key to the proceedings of the Convention. 

AGAIN FOR GOVERNOR.— SSfhW^ yet in the Senate, and 
in 1868, Mr. Hendricks permitted the use of his name as the 
candidate of his party for Governor of Indiana. His opponent 
was Conrad Baker. Though not as memorable as the campaign 
of i860, this was a warmly-contested canvass, in which the 
Senator's personal popularity and great forensic ability gave him 
especial advantage. He turned a situation decidedly adverse at 
the start into one which bore strong resemblance to a Dem- 
ocratic victory. The result was so close that it was in doubt for 
a long time. The majority for Baker turned out to be only 961, 
and not a few were of the opinion that it was manufactured after 
the ballots were cast. If defeat it can be called,' it was one of 
that kind which is often more disastrous to the victor than the 
vanquished. It certainly left Mr. Hendricks in possession of 
the laurels which should have found a place on the brow of his 
opponent. 

A PRESIDENTIAL CANDID ATE,— As already intimated. 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 59 

Mr. Hendricks stood before his party as one upon whom its 
highest honors were at any time hkely to fall. Not that he was 
ever soHcitous for place, but as one whose abiHty, force of char- 
acter and trusted national advisorship clearly marked him as 
worthy of more exalted station and confidence. He therefore 
came spontaneously and conspicuously forward in the Demo- 
cratic Convention which met in New York city, July 4, 1868, as 
a candidate for the Presidency. This Convention was made 
memorable by the defiant attitude of Ohio, after the State had 
been compelled to abandon her own candidate, in the person of 
Mr. Pendleton, who started on the first ballot with 105, which 
was increased to 156)^ on the 8th ballot, and gradually waned 
to 56 J^ on the i8th ballot, when he was withdrawn. Mr. Hen- 
dricks had but 2^^ votes on the first ballot, which gradually 
increased to 132, as against 135^ for General Hancock on the 
2 1st ballot. He had succeeded in securing the solid vote of 
N^w York State and the entire Northwest, and his friends looked 
hopefully for his nomination on the next ballot. But Ohio, by 
her stubborn resistance to any Western man, after the honors 
had once passed from her grasp, succeeded in stampeding the 
Convention by throwing her strength to Horatio Seymour, of 
New York, who received the entire 317 votes on the 22d 
ballot. 

The friends of Mr. Hendricks were naturally chagrined at this 
hostile conduct of their Ohio brethren, as well as at that of 
certain New York politicians who connived at the plan to spring 
Mr. Seymour's name upon the Convention as a last resort. It 
cannot be said that the end justified the means. Mr. Hendricks 
would certainly have proved a more felicitous and formidable 
candidate at that particular juncture. He was closer to his 
party, had its confidence to a greater degree, and would have 
infused the campaign with greater tact and vigor. True, he lost 
his own State as candidate for Governor in October, and that 
has been used as an argument to vindicate the choice of Sey- 
mour, but it must be remembered that he fought that battle 
under the cloud of defeat in the National Convention, entered it 
more to hold his party together for the November contest than 



60 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

with a hope of winning, yet came out of the fight with all the 
moral results of a victory. 

On his retiracy from the Senate, in 1869, he returned to his 
law practice at Indianapolis. He did not, however, dwarf his 
inclination for politics. His services were ever at the call of his 
party, whether in council or in debate. He was too well estab- 
lished before the country to be secure in retiracy, and too avail- 
able as a party leader to be unthought of when honors were at 
its disposal. His conduct during this interval was characterized 
by cautious good sense and manly desire to keep his record 
clean and acceptable. 

In the National Democratic Convention which met at Balti- 
more, June 9, 1872, for the purpose of nominating candidates for 
President and Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks had an undoubted 
majority of the delegates pledged to his support. But the man- 
agers of the Liberal Republican Convention, which had met at 
Cincinnati, May I, 1872, and placed Horace Greeley in nomina- 
tion, swarmed in the Baltimore meeting and captured it entirely. 
The result was an endorsement of the Cincinnati platform and 
nominations, amid loud protest from the straight-out Democrats. 
The deed once done, submission seemed to be the wiser part. 
It was sullen and half-hearted, to be sure, but sufficient to permit 
the State organizations to live and in some instances to thrive. 

AS GOVERNOR.— Mr. Hendricks took this turn of affairs 
very philosophically. He did not allow it to interfere with his 
candidacy for the Governorship of his own State, which had now 
fallen to him for the third time, although against his earnest 
protest. The campaign was a bitter one in every respect. 
Nationally it proved almost the death-knell of the Democratic 
party. In the States it was particularly disastrous. But for 
such a champion as Mr. Hendricks in Indiana, whose wonderful 
campaign powers were supplemented by irresistible personal 
popularity, that State would have been entirely swept from its 
political moorings. As it was, the Republicans carried the Leg- 
islature and all of the State ticket except the Governor and Su- 
perintendent of Public Instruction. The majorities were small, 
but in the end undisputed. Some regard this result as due more 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. Ql 

to Mr. Hendricks' clean character than to the principles he 
espoused. Let such be the verdict of all who choose to have it 
so. It only adds to the credit of a man seeking official place 
that his character is above suspicion, socially and morally. 
What if Mr. Hendricks drew in this instance the influence due 
to his high standing in a leading denomination ? What if he 
drew from the temperance element the support due to a sober, 
conscientious life ? What if, with a personally objectionable 
opponent, he drew a strength from every source which was non- 
political ? They were all so many testimonials to his private 
worth, which are, in the end, stronger than those of partisan 
color. 

The result was so close and complicated that its final deter- 
mination was postponed many anxious days. Many of the 
Governor's friends gave his cause up as lost. At the Democratic 
headquarters the most experienced arithmetic men figured over re- 
turns which were as so many baffling puzzles. But one, the edi- 
tor of the Indianapolis Sentinel, adhered to his prediction of victroy 
from the beginning. During the long suspense Mr. Hendricks 
listened placidly to the varying opinions of his friends, till a last 
count defeated him by some half-dozen votes. Then breaking 
into a laugh he observed, " I wonder if I am always to just miss 
being Governor of Indiana ? " His question was soon answered 
satisfactorily by an official majority of 1,148 votes. It may be 
said of his administration that it was in entire keeping with the 
established character of the man. Indiana never had an abler, 
more conscientious or higher-minded executive. He aimed to 
do his whole duty, and his official conduct was really beyond 
criticism. His term began January, 1873, and ended January, 

1877- ■ 

Some endeavored to hold him to hostile account for signing 
a local option bill, passed by the. Republican Legislature. As 
Chairman of the Democratic Convention in 1874, he took occa- 
sion to explain his action at length. The obnoxious bill was 
clearly a demand of the State. He acted in obedience to this 
demand and with the knowledge that a veto could be readily 
overridden in the Legislature. His personal conviction was in 



62 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

favor of a license system, but this he withheld in order to test 
the desired legislation. Sentiment soon veered to his position. 
In the next Legislature a majority of both Houses voted to sub- 
stitute a License Law for Local Option. 

The Legislative session of 1875 was a struggle between a 
Republican Senate and Democratic House for party advantage. 
The session was limited by law to sixty days. Its end was 
approaching and the Senate hoped to defeat certain objectionable 
House measures by withholding concurrence till after midnight 
of the day on which the session legally ended, or, otherwise, 
force the Democrats into the odium of a long and expensive 
extra session. The session closed on Saturday night. On 
Monday morning, and before the members could leave the 
capital, the Governor issued his proclamation for an extra ses- 
sion, to meet on Tuesday. At the same time he informed them 
that though they could legally stay for forty days, they might 
find it greatly conducive to their political and personal comforts 
to speedily despatch the business before them and go home. 
They took the hint good-naturedly, broke the dead lock quickly, 
attended to their duty, and were off inside of a week. 

Mr. Hendricks has been criticised on account of his supposed 
leaning toward currency inflation and Greenbackism at a time 
when they were a craze in most of the States. The truth is he 
never gave adhesion to the Greenback theory, per se. The 
Greenback doctrine was Hearing its height of popularity in 1873. 
It was sweeping States and carrying party leaders with it. 
Whatever may be said of its arguments there was sympathy 
among men of all parties with the hardships which contraction 
of the currency entailed. Mr. Hendricks had no opportunity 
nor call to do more than join in such sympathy. But being a 
public and exponential man, he was wrongly credited with con- 
victions he did not share, such is the jealousy of American poli- 
tics, and such the anxiety to make a target of those in prominent 
place. Feeling this, he took advantage of the first opportunity 
presented to set himself right. This occurred when he was 
made presiding officer of the Democratic State Convention in 
1874, He then argued specifically and at length that gold and 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. ^3 

silver were the true basis of currency, and that the proper method 
of returning to specie payments was through the growing up pro- 
cess, the development of all parts of the country and especially 
the South, the general increase of production, the retrenchment 
of public and private expenditure. 

While it was true that the State platform of that year catered 
to the Greenback idea, it did not therein represent the views of 
Mr, Hendricks. So much was it away from his sturdy convic- 
tions that he took pains during the fall canvass to define in pub- 
lic speech the difference between his views and those found in 
the platform. This was not only honest, but, in a strictly politi- 
cal sense, may be regarded as fearless and even bold, for it was 
diametrically opposite to an intensity of sentiment before which 
the leaders of both parties were quailing. 

His studied and matured thoughts upon the question are best 
conveyed in his own language. After speaking against hasty 
and undue contraction of the currency as tending to check labor 
and paralyze enterprise, on the one hand, and against unseemly 
inflation as tending to depreciation of values and suicidal adven- 
ture on the other, he continued in his address thus : 

** We desire a return to specie payments. It is a serious evil 
when there are commercial mediums of different values ; when 
one description of money is for one class and purpose and 
another for a different class and purpose. We cannot too 
strongly impress the importance of the policy that shall restore 
uniformity of values to all the money of the country, so that it 
shall always and readily be convertible. That gold and silver 
are the real standards of value is a cherished Democratic doc- 
trine not now nor hereafter to be abandoned. But I do not look 
to any arbitrary act of Congress for a restoration of specie pay- 
ments. Such an effort now would probably produce wide- 
spread commercial disaster. A Congressional declaration can- 
not make the paper currency equal to gold in value. It cannot 
make a bank note equal to a dollar. The business of the coun- 
try alone can do that. When we find the coin of the country 
increasing, then we. may know we are moving in the direction of 
specie payments. The important financial question is, * how can 



64 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

we increase and make permanent our supply of gold ? * The 
reliable solution is, by increasing our productions and thereby 
reducing our purchases and increasing our sales abroad. He 
can readily obtain money who produces more than he consumes 
of articles that are, wanted in the market, and I suppose that is 
also true of communities and nations. How can the Republican 
party atone to the people for its evil policies which have driven 
gold from the country, rendered a return to specie payment 
more difficult, and made its postponement more inevitable?" 
This sounds like something quite the opposite of Greenbackism. 
It was just probable that Mr. Hendricks, during the entire 
Greenback agitation, was as much of a hard-money man as any 
of those who glibly took him to task for departing from the old 
Democratic traditions. 

In 1875 Mr. Hendricks, forgetting the blow which Ohio had 
dealt him in 1868, went actively into the campaign in that State 
for Mr. Allen, who was running for Governor. His object was 
to aid in a Democratic victory there in order that the State 
might be found securely in the party columns during the Presi- 
dential canvass of the succeeding year. 

It must be set down to Mr. Hendricks' enduring credit that 
he has always been a steadfast friend of the Common School 
system of the State of Indiana. As a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention he brought all his energy and talent to bear 
on the various questions which had for their object the securing 
of ample provisions for popular education, and the placing of 
its support beyond the vicissitudes of politics. Fully impressed 
with the importance of a work then achieved he has since, both 
as an official and citizen, repeatedly insisted on the most anxious 
watchfulness over the growth and final perfection of the system. 
In this quest he has agreed to lay aside all party prejudices and 
all rigid constructions and join heartily with the friends of educa- 
tion, no matter what their political proclivities. His views in this 
respect are those of the large-hearted educator and philanthropist, 
and not those of the narrow partisan. ^ 

CONVENTION OF 1876.— In the Democratic National 
Convention which met at St. Louis, June 28, 1876, Mr. Hen- 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 65 

dricks was the chief competitor of Mr. Tilden as candidate for 
the Presidency. On the first ballot his strength was measured 
by 140 votes. On the second ballot, which decided Mr. Tilden's 
candidacy, he had 60 votes. The position of second place on 
the ticket therefore fell naturally to him. The country still re- 
members the nature of that campaign and its outcome. Mr. 
Hendricks suffered, along with his illustrious companion on the 
ticket, the mortification of defeat at the hands of the Electoral 
Commission, after having carried the country by a decided ma- 
jority of votes, and as many thought at the time, and still think, 
by a majority of the Electoral College, had there been an honest 
return. 

Though most of the political questions paramount in that 
campaign are now res adjudicatce, a few remain open, and are 
even now pressing for solution. It may be interesttng to refer 
to his standing on one or two of these, as found in his letter of 
acceptance. Two of them are now prominent, being referred to 
in the platform of both parties. On each Mr. Hendricks then 
took decided ground, though in advance of sentiment in his party 
and sentiment in general. He was a civil service reformer when 
to be such was to court a certain degree of unpopularity, and as 
to that pronounced Americanism which has lately become a pass- 
port to popular favor, he was far in advance of its present ardent 
advocates. 

As to an American system, he said, " Our treaties with foreign 
powers should be revised and amended in so far as they leave 
citizens of foreign birth in any particular less secure in any 
country on earth than they would be \i they had been born upon 
our own soil ; and the iniquitous coolie system which, through 
the agency of wealthy companies, imports Chinese bondsmen, 
establishes a species of slavery, and interferes with the just re- 
wards of labor on our Pacific coast, should be utterly abolished." 

As to Civil Service reform he said, " In the reform of our Civil 
Service I heartily endorse that section of the platform which de- 
clares that the civil service ought not to be * subject to change 
at every election,' and that it ought not to be made * the brief 
reward of party zeal, but ought to be awarded for proved com- 
5 



66 BUILDING AND RULING THE REPUBLIC. 

petency and held for fidelity in the public employ.' I hope 
never again to see the cruel and remorseless proscription for 
political opinions which has disgraced the administration of the 
last eight years. Bad as the civil service now is, as all know, it 
has some men of tried integrity and proved ability. Such men, 
and such only, should be retained in office ; but no man should 
be retained, on any consideration, who has prostituted his office 
to the purposes of partisan intimidation and compulsion, or who 
has furnished money to corrupt the elections. This is done, and 
it has been done, in almost every county of the land. It is a 
blight upon the morals of the country, and it ought to be re- 
formed." 

In the National Democratic Convention which met at Cincin- 
nati, June 22, 1880, Mr. Hendricks was again a conspicuous can- 
didate, having had on the first ballot 46^ votes. On the second 
ballot, which nominated General Hancock, his friends stuck to 
him and he had 30 votes, Hancock having 705, Bayard 2 and 
Tilden i. 

Ever since the retiracy of Mr. Hendricks from the guberna- 
torial chair of his State, he has conducted a large law business 
and attended to those civic and political calls which are constantly 
made on a man of his ability and prominence. Latterly he has 
travelled abroad as a quiet and intelligent observer of men and 
institutions, and has thus added to his well-stored mind and to- 
the enjoyment of his mature years. In the Chicago Convention 
of 1884 he was not a candidate. But on the second ballot, when 
there was hope of a combination against Mr. Cleveland, he se- 
cured a strength of 45^ votes. His name was brought forward 
amid the utmost enthusiasm, and having failed to make the first 
place on the ticket, the second fell to him by acclamation. 

PERSONAL. — Ex-Governor Hendricks is a finely preserved 
man of medium height and symmetrical figure, being erect, ac- 
tive and vigorous. His features are large and clear cut ; his face 
manly and expressive. In younger years he must have passed 
as a decidedly handsome man. He has large blue eyes which 
bespeak kindness ; firmly set jaws, indicative of resolution ; a full, 
large forehead, declarative of wisdom. His complexion tends to 



HON. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. g7 

a florid cast, and his hair and side-whisker*s indine to gray, though 
not to the extent expected in a man of sixty-five. He has led 
a pleasant social life, and shows no traces of either hard work or 
disappointment. His disposition is sunny, his conversation easy 
and fluent. With friends he is frank and cordial ; with those not 
so near he is courteous but cautious. He does not hold grudges 
and would do as much to conciliate an enemy as to oblige a 
friend. He is guarded and methodical in his habits, and as to 
money, of economic turn, though disposed to charity where the 
cause is worthy. In fortune he is now independent, but it is the 
result of conserving what he honestly earned, and not specula- 
tion or manipulation. His voice is clear and musical and can be 
heard at a great distance. He has always been a hard w^orker, 
and effort has been so put forth as to bring the surest results. If 
these did not come in material shape, they came in the shape of 
commendations and honors. Though a favorite as a social com- 
panion, he appears to greatest advantage before an audience, or 
where occasion operates as a spur to his latent powers. When 
kindled by opposition he loses his habitual cast of thought and 
becomes aggressive and even dashing in action and argument. 
He is a prominent member of the Episcopalian church, and noted 
for his good works. _ His wife is a woman of fine education and 
sterling force of character. They have no children. All in all 
Mr. Hendricks is one of the purest-minded and ablest men now 
before the American public, and the mantle of the Vice-Presi- 
dency could not fall on worthier shoulders. 



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